Empty Boundaries
by Nasuwords
Summary: A fan translation of the original novels by Kinoko Nasu.  You've seen the movies, but now you can read the original.
1. Thanatos

**AN: Translation by the talented cokesakto. I claim no credit in translating this, and am just helping to spread it.**

* * *

><p>That was the day when, led on by nothing except an impulse of curiosity, I took the main avenue on the way home. It wasn't a shortcut, and I didn't plan on passing by any particular place there. It was just something I decided to do on a whim.<p>

This part of the avenue was full of skyscrapers and tall condos, some old, more of them new, while others were abandoned husks, all commingled into one crowded skyline. I'd wager everybody in the city, including me, was tired of looking at them day in and day out. While walking beside the buildings, I suddenly saw something fall from a roof to the concrete sidewalk some distance ahead of me.

It was a person.

In the moment that that person fell, I heard a sickening sound. The wet, raw sound you associate with the kind of things you don't want happening anywhere near you. The kind of sound you never really get to hear often. Judging from the height that the person fell from, it was clear that whoever he or she was died the instant it hit the pavement.

As I drew closer to the point of impact, I was able to scrutinize what happened more clearly. All that was left, all that my mind could take in, was the scarlet trail seeping slowly across the asphalt; the frail, bone-like limbs, and the long, black hair, which still retained some of its living beauty.

And that dead face.

The scene struck my mind with the image of a flower pressed between the pages of an old, musty tome.

Perhaps because the corpse, with its neck twisted, looked like a broken lily to me.

／Panorama

* * *

><p>／1<p>

It is a night somewhere in the beginning of August, and Mikiya comes by to visit without any prior notice, as per his MO. Popping open the door, I see him standing idly in the hallway, facing the entrance like some sort of servant-in-waiting.

"Evening, Shiki. You look as lazy as ever," he says, with a smile on his face. A strange greeting is just the kind of thing I expected him to do.

"Have you heard?" he continues. "There was another jumper today, actually. This time I was actually at the scene. There've been a lot of these incidents lately, but I never thought I would actually come across one."

He hands me a plastic convenience store bag. "Here, in the fridge." He holds the bag, arm outstretched, while untying his shoes and talking to me. Mikiya is nothing if not a multi-tasker. Inside the bag were two cups of Haagen-Dazs strawberry ice cream. I guess he wants me to put them inside my fridge before they melt. While checking out the contents of the bag, Mikiya had already undone his laces and stepped inside.

My home is just a small apartment in a low-rise. The first thing you see on opening the front door is the small entryway, not even one meter long, where you take off your shoes. After going through that mess, you arrive at my one-stop bedroom-slash-living room, where Mikiya had already started making himself comfortable. I follow him in, glaring at his back while doing so.

"Shiki, you've been skipping class again, haven't you? Your grades don't really matter, but come on; you should at least attend your classes. Don't tell me you already forgot our promise to go to college together."

"Wiser words were never before spoken," I reply, feeling particularly caustic, "especially coming from someone who dropped college way before I did. And sadly, this promise we supposedly made ain't ringing any bells."

"Don't start being difficult again, Shiki."

Mikiya tends to be a bit more blunt when you've got him cornered in a conversation; a helpful tidbit that has only recently come back to me. I climb on top of the bed and lie flat, Mikiya choosing to sit on the floor while leaning on the bed, his back facing me.

This young man named Mikiya Kokuto has been a friend to me since high school. At least that's what my head tells me. My recollections have been a bit fuzzy lately.

We live in an age where fashion trends and the accompanying models that people want to look like are as apt to change as often as you blink in a day. A rarity, then, to still find someone like Mikiya, who steadfastly refuses to budge from his student-like appearance. He doesn't dye his hair or have it grow into an unmanageable mess, he doesn't tan his skin or wear accessories, he doesn't carry a cellphone, and he doesn't even allow himself the simple pleasures of flirting around with women. His demeanor struck me as the kind of person you'd probably see more ordinarily at lazy English train stations. His 170cm height, considerate disposition, and large, black rimmed glasses certainly complete the image. Not exactly someone you do a double-take on when you pass him by on the street, though it mostly due to his own fault: if he actually took the time to dress nicely instead of wearing somber black clothes every day, he might even be noticed.

"Shiki, are you listening? I met your mom today, too. She said you haven't really contacted your family since you got out of the hospital two months ago. You should at least show your face at the Ryogi estate, don't you think?"

"Mmm?" I reply, as listlessly as Kokuto said I was. "I don't really have any business being there, though."

"Oh, come on, isn't it about time you patched things up with your folks? It's been two years after all, and you haven't talked or met with them since."

"There's no use in making a pointless house call or a pointless conversation with them when it'll only make us grow farther apart. It still isn't real to me. Not so soon after getting out of the hospital. I mean, talking to you is still weird; what'll happen if I talk to those strangers?" My patience with the subject grew thinner every second. I wish he would just stop pushing it.

"Things aren't going to get any better if it keeps up like this, you know. It isn't right for you and your parents to be living so close to each other and not even talk."

The sudden criticism makes me frown. What exactly is wrong with it? There's nothing illegal going on between me and my parents. It's just that I lost some of my memories in a traffic accident. We're recognized as a family by the law and by our blood, so there really shouldn't be anything to talk about here.

Mikiya always has his head in a worry about any damn person and their life issues, even though to me it seems like a wasteful exercise.

[][][][][][][][][][]

Shiki Ryogi is my friend from high school. We studied together in a private school famous for putting a lot of its students on the fast track to a college education. On the day that I was looking for my name on the lists of people who had passed the entrance exam, I saw a name that caught my eye: "Shiki Ryogi." As names go, it was a pretty peculiar one, and our being classmates ensured that it would get stuck in my head. Ever since then, I've become possibly the only friend Shiki's ever had.

Due to our school having no uniforms, and a casual clothing policy, a lot of people dressed in a multitude of ways to express themselves. Even in that sort of environment, Shiki stood out from the crowd.

Largely because of the kimono.

At first, that particular wardrobe choice made it seem as if the prime minister himself walked in on the classroom, forcing everyone to silence. But once it became clear that Shiki wasn't sparing any words for anyone except the queries of the teachers, which were uncommon, people started to stop caring. Not that Shiki minded.

The cultivated air of inapproachability, intentional or not, certainly widened the distance more than the clothes already did, but Shiki's features undoubtedly helped out in that regard as well.

Black hair framed Shiki's face, as it does now; cut long enough to hide the ears. However, it was clear that the maintenance of it seemed to Shiki like it was time wasted, evidenced by how it looked like it was cut with reckless abandon. Yet the cut was just at that height where people start to second guess Shiki's gender on first contact. More than anything though, it would be Shiki's eyes that lend your feet to stop. Those eyes carried a piercing gaze, seeming to bear witness to something invisible, something "other". To me, those eyes were a definition, synecdochic to character.

But then, the accident happened…

[][][][][][][][][][]

"The jumpers."

"Wha—oh, sorry, I wasn't listening." Mikiya cocks his head towards me a bit to listen.

"I said 'the jumpers.' As in the people who took a header on the sidewalk off a building. Would you say that what happened was accidental, Mikiya?"

He shuts up for a moment and actually tries to think on the casual question seriously. He puts a hand on his chin, evoking the puzzled intensity of stumped detectives the world over.

"Well, it's on the person who jumps if he really wanted to do that or not. As for how society will look at it, they do classify 'falling from a high place' as an accident so—"

"Not a murder, not exactly a suicide, and not exactly an accident either. That's vague," I muse. "I don't know if it occurred to them that killing themselves would just inconvenience a lot more people than they thought it would. Maybe they should have grabbed a handbook on the subject and died a bit better." As soon as I say that, I see Mikiya shake his head in disapproval.

"I guess I have to add 'speaks ill of the departed' to your already illustrious résumé of insensitivity." He replies in monotone disappointment, almost without a note of chastisement. Typical.

"Ah, Kokuto. Ever the killjoy." Despite my objection, he doesn't even seem to care.

"Hah, that's rare. It's been a while since you called me by that name."

"That so?"

He nods like a squirrel. I tend to pronounce his surname a bit differently than you would normally, with a sort of French flavor; a small joke that originates way back in high school. I don't really like the ring of the nickname though, so I stick with "Mikiya" for the most part, but sometimes I just blurt it out, like an involuntary emission of boredom or frustration. In the silence of my reverie, he suddenly claps his hands as if remembering something.

"Oh yeah, while we're on the topic of rare things, I just remembered that my sister Azaka said she saw it too."

"Saw what now?"

"The girl you said you saw floating around the Fujo Tower."

Ah, yes, the Fujo Tower, former high-rise condominium situated in the commercial office district of town that used to serve as residence to the more privileged tax brackets, now abandoned and leaving people with little else save its husk and its memory. And a haunting, if what Kokuto says is true. Passing by it some days ago, I happened to see a spectral figure in that looked quite human. If Azaka saw it too, then it must mean it's real.

My second sight, the ability to see these types of events, has its roots (as much as one can point out a definitive origin to this weirdness, at least) in one event, a point in time that feels simultaneously distant and recent. I was in a traffic accident two years ago, and because of that I spent those last two years in a coma. After waking from that coma, I began to…see things that weren't there before. Toko would say that what I'm doing isn't so much "sight" as it is "perception." In other words, it seems my senses have "awakened" to a higher level of perception, but it's all technical magical gobbledygook that I couldn't care less to understand.

"I did see it more than a few times, but I haven't been there lately so I wouldn't know if it's still there," I say, as I stretch out my arms.

"I don't know why," says Kokuto, perplexed, "but I pass by there all the time and I don't see anything."

"I'd say it's because you have one pair of eyes too many," I throw back at him.

"Erm, I don't think glasses have anything to do with it." Mikiya is always like this. He's on a no-nonsense path and he's going to stick to it come hell or high water. Honestly, I think it's his naiveté that makes him not see these…"other" things. Nevertheless, these trifling incidents of people flying and falling seem to be set to continue. I can't puzzle out the meaning behind it all, so I ask Mikiya a question.

"Mikiya, do you know the reason people fly?"

He gives a shrug. "Wouldn't know. I mean, I've never tried flying before anyway," he says with a yawn.

* * *

><p>／2<p>

It is a night approaching the end of August, and I decide to take a stroll. Despite summer quickly coming to a close, the air usually remained warm, which makes the chill running through the air tonight a rare and unusual event. The last train has come and gone, and a deathly silence has blanketed the city. This dead part of town is largely bereft of people, and looked like something foreign. Even the few pedestrians present seem fake, unnatural, like they were from some old daguerreotype. The whole thing reminds me of he scent of corpses, of grave pallor that stretched its damning influence across the city, as unstoppable and incurable as a terminal disease.

Everything—from the foreboding houses with no signs of life or light, to the dimly lit convenience store that offers little respite from the darkness—everything feels like all it takes is one bad moment to make them all fall down in violent upheaval.

The moon seems like the last refuge of life, even as my Eyes take in the richness of death in all things. This place is no exception, and my eyes hurt because of it. It's sickening.

I took a black leather jacket with me when I left the house, and now I wear it atop my light blue kimono. The kimono's sleeves get bunched up inside the jacket, and the heat warms my body. Even then, it still isn't hot.

Well, not exactly. For me, it's more like it wasn't cold to begin with.

[][][][][][][][][][]

Even in such a deep night like this one, you can still encounter a few people making their way on the streets.

A man with the complete suit-tie-briefcase ensemble hurriedly making his way down the lane, his face cast downwards, features hidden by the shadows. A loiterer sitting by the light of the vending machine, his head swimming in the potent cocktail of alcohol and narcotics. Vagrants hanging around the vicinity of the 24-hour convenience store, maybe pondering how exactly they're going to bust it, or just trying to find safety in numbers.

Who knows what reason these people may find themselves out here in the middle of the night, walking dangerous streets? I don't even know my own reasons. I'm just doing what I used to do before.

…Two years ago.

In a different time, I was on the cusp of going into my second year of high school. But in that rain-soaked night, I was involved in an unfortunate traffic accident. I was brought to the hospital straightaway. Apparently, I didn't receive much in the way of bodily harm; few wounds, nothing serious, but nothing much beyond that. If it was really an accident, it was a pretty damn clean one, I'd say. On the other hand, peculiarly, I did receive serious damage to my brain, through which I lapsed into a deep coma. That's what they told me at least. That night is the only time I have trouble even recalling.

Because I had little serious physical injury, it wasn't a big stretch for the hospital to keep me alive, and my unconscious self grasped and groped for that last sliver of life. Statistically speaking, after 6 months, the chances of a coma patient coming back are pretty slim, but there are the aberrant cases, like myself. The doctors were so surprised at my recovery two months ago; it's as if they saw a corpse rising from the grave. Guess they never expected me to pull a Lazarus on them, which I guess clues me in to their close to zilch hopes on my case. Though perhaps not equaling their exaggerated reactions, I too had a surprise waiting for me.

My memories became…alien, foreign, like they were coming from the head of a different person. Put simply, I'm dissociated from the memories, unable to put stock in their validity. It was different than mere amnesia, or a lapse in memory.

As Toko would say, there are apparently four systems or steps the brain uses with regards to handling memory: encoding, storage, retrieval, and recognition.

"Encoding" is writing your impressions of an experience as information in your brain.

"Storage" is actually keeping that impression or memory.

"Retrieval" is calling back that stored information, or in other words, remembering.

"Recognition" is confirming whether or not that information was the same as what actually happened.

If, in any one of these steps, there is some sort of failure, then you get memory disorder. Depending on which of these steps fail, you get very different cases of memory disorder. In my case, however, there isn't a problem with any of these steps. Though I can't place my memories as my own, "recognition" is working because I can identify my memories as my previous experiences.

Even then, I still couldn't trust these memories. I had no real feeling that I am the Shiki Ryogi that was. Perhaps it was some other Shiki Ryogi, some other high school student, some other person who had an accident. But I've seen the documents; I am Shiki Ryogi. At least that's what my brain tells me.

Two years of oblivion have reduced me, if not to emptiness, than to something that sits closely beside it. It laid waste all that I was inside, and severed what connection existed between my memory and personality through two years of "living" like a shell, on the boundary of emptiness. And though there was precious little drama here compared to actual societal rejection, it drives me to worry all the same. All my memories are just reflections on the water, and I don't know whether I'm the reflection or the real thing. With these memories, I know how to act like the Shiki Ryogi that my parents and friends knew, but I know it best; it's all just an act, just mimesis. It's like being a newborn baby: not knowing anything and lacking any sort of world experience. Or possibly it's more like not living at all.

Still, the memories do help. I mean, they make me into a functional human being, after all. I already have the emotions people have from experiencing something. It's not real, hands-on experience or anything, but at least it's there. It results in this weird feeling where if I do something, I feel like it's my first time doing it and also feel like I've done it a hundred times before. There's no amazement, like a magic trick where you can see the strings in the sleeve.

And so I continue to play out this strange role. The reason is quite simple.

Because by doing so, maybe I can return to some semblance of the past.

Because by doing so, maybe I can figure out why I like walking so late at night.

I guess, in a way, you could say I've fallen in love with my previous self.

[][][][][][][][][][]

I try to get my bearings in the neighborhood, and I realize I've walked pretty far, enough to reach the office district of the city. Buildings that stood at heights almost similar to each other lined the street, looking like soldiers arranged in neat little firing ranks. The surface of these buildings are riddled with little glass windows, themselves in their own arrangement. The reflection of moonlight as well as of the other buildings borne atop their shining surfaces creates a sort of shadow world, where monsters and their kind lurked.

One shadow stands taller than the rest, however. Like a perverse monument, it stands long and narrow, with a height that looked like it could reach the moon.

The Fujo Tower.

No lights or signs of life are present in that building. Seeing as how it's two o' clock in the morning, I really shouldn't be surprised. The coldness of the still night is irregular at this time of summer. The bone in my nape creaks from the cold, despite the lack of any tangible feeling of a breeze. I decide that it's just my imagination. As I looked up at the towering structure, a black shape flits past my sight, almost unnoticeable because of the lack of light. Looking closer, I realize it's a shadow of a human figure, and then I realize it's not a shadow at all. The silhouette of a woman comes floating into view atop the building. I didn't mean that as a turn of phrase though. She literally is floating.

"Hmph, so you've shown yourself today as well, I see." I say.

I don't like her up there, silhouetted against the moonlight. But I can hardly do anything about what I can see. And as quickly as I saw her, she vanishes, flying as if the moon was her cradle.

* * *

><p>Panorama／<p>

I see a dragonfly, beating its wings.

A butterfly follows it, but its pace doesn't slacken. The butterfly tries to keep up with the dragonfly, but it is a futile effort. As it flies further, I see a glimpse of the butterfly as its strength failed and gravity took hold. It makes an arc as it falls, and then trails its way to the ground like a snake, or a broken lily. A sad and cruel scene.

Perhaps, even if they could not travel together, they could have kept each other company for a while longer. But I knew that was impossible. To something like the dragonfly, whose feet don't touch the earth, even such freedom was denied.

[][][][][][][][][][]

I hear the distinct buzz of conversation, and I wake up.

My eyelids were screaming for two more hours of sleep, even as my mind warred between sleeping and waking. In the end, the battle was won by the latter, and I set to work on the laborious task of opening my eyelids. Sometimes, I wonder if I worry about these things too much. I was up all night working on the blueprints and diagrams, and I must have fallen asleep in Miss Toko's room. I raise myself up from the sofa with a hint of enthusiasm, pushing up my glasses so I could see better, and I realize that this was indeed the office.

The office was a cluttered place full of occult oddities and research that Miss Toko had accumulated throughout the years. The midday sunlight illuminated this mess, as well as the two people conversing; Shiki, wearing a smooth kimono as always, was leaning with back to the wall, and Miss Toko was sitting cross-legged on a chair.

Miss Toko always dressed smart, with thin black pants and a collared white blouse that seemed to look new every time you meet her. Combined with her short hair and the way it made her neck show, it gave her the image of a company secretary, though I thought that with her scary, piercing look, especially if she didn't have her glasses on, it would probably be impossible that she would ever get such a job.

"'Morning, Kokuto." Miss Toko gave a glance in my direction, like she always does, to acknowledge my presence. No glasses were worn over her hawk eyed glare today, a sign that she and Shiki were probably talking business.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. I guess I fell asleep."

"Don't start with excuses. I can see well enough. If you're fully with us on planet Earth now, then go make something to drink. A cup of coffee would be good. It should warm your bones a bit after that long rest."

Long rest? Well, I did feel exceptionally tired, so it wasn't a completely strange thing to say. I don't know why Miss Toko would say it, but she's always talking cryptically at the best of times anyway, so not asking her has become the standard operating procedure.

"How about you, Shiki? Need a drink?" I managed to ask in my groggy state, only half aware of my surroundings.

"Nah, I'm good. I'm about to hit the sack soon, anyway."

Lazy eyes and sagging shoulders tell the story of Shiki's sleeplessness well enough. Probably went and did another one of those nightly strolls again last night.

[][][][][][][][][][]

Next to Miss Toko's office room was another one that served the purposes of a kitchen, at least to her. To me, it looked more like a laboratory, or at the very least it used to look like one. The sink had three faucets in a row, just like you'd see in a lab. Two of those had wires strapped around them, either disabled or possessing some unearthly, forbidden function, the operation of which I suspect only passed between God and Miss Toko. God sure wasn't revealing anything, and Miss Toko is of the same mindset, and I was in no particular rush to find out. Either way, it gave the entire room a disturbing air.

I turn on the coffee maker, and it emits a low hum as it processes the drink. The first thing I do upon arriving here every day is make coffee for Miss Toko, so it's come to the point where I could do it with my eyes closed. It's been almost half a year since I've started working for her. "Work" in this case being a very loose term. This place could hardly be called your typical office environment. Despite that, I stay on, probably because I saw something in what she worked on.

Just after Shiki lapsed into a coma, I graduated high school and entered college with no motivation or any particular purpose. At some point back in our high school days, me and Shiki made a deal to go to college together. Even if Shiki had no hope of waking up, I still wanted to keep that promise. But my life after Shiki's coma was one of aimless drifting, just watching the calendar as the days swept past.

One day I was invited by an acquaintance to a doll and puppet exhibit, and it was there that I found it: A doll in the shape and size of a human, so finely made that it must have taken its craftsman years of hard work; some measure of his soul went into that doll. Though I knew it was just a doll like anything else there, it looked more like a human being, frozen in place, and one I was sure would move any second now, if someone breathed into it. A thing on the brink of existence, but didn't live, preserved on the boundary that no one else walked.

I was attracted to that contradiction, maybe because it reminded me so much of the person that Shiki was before. Apparently, the maker of the doll was unknown. Even the pamphlet of the exhibit didn't mention any names. I dove into investigation, desperately seeking the person who could craft such a beautiful doll. It turned out to be someone not entirely connected to the business of doll making, and did it with no real intent for fame. A mysterious recluse named Toko Aozaki.

Apparently she makes dolls as her main occupation, but was also an architect on the side. She seemed to be involved in just generally "making" things, whatever those thing may be, but she never accepts requests. Mysteriously, she just knows who needs things made, goes to them, announces her intent, and proceeds to make whatever it is they want after receiving a generous advance payment.

She must be the world's greatest freelance craftsman, or the world's biggest weirdo.

I got even more interested in finding her after that, even though I got a sense that I really should have quit at that point. Something seemed to pull at my effort, almost as if she didn't want to be found out. Eventually, through much time and record searching, I found out she lived in some place away from the city, not in the suburbs, or the industrial district.

It wasn't even a house.

It's an abandoned building.

Well, to be more specific, it's a building where construction was stopped when it was halfway done, probably because whoever funded it ran out of money. It has the shape of a building, seen from afar, but inside the floor and walls are bare. It was left as it was, neglected and surrendered to time and the weather. Had it been completed, it would have had six floors, but there's nothing above the fourth floor. Nowadays it would be more efficient to start the bulk of the construction from the top, but I guess they were still using the old methods back then. Now the fifth floor has been dragooned into the service of a roof. Though surrounded by a high concrete wall, anyone who wanted to go in would have an easy time of it, since the gate was always open. It's a miracle the local kids don't mess around in it. They probably just see it as some suspicious, dangerous building they should stay out of. Pretty convenient.

I don't know if Miss Toko really bought the building, but it seems that way, so for now, she stays here. The laboratory-slash-coffee room I'm in right now is situated on the fourth floor, and the second and third are Miss Toko's various offices, storage rooms, and workshops, so we usually talk shop on the fourth floor.

After finding Miss Toko, I got to know her and asked for employment of some sort, just to sate my interest in this master craftswoman. I quit college, and started working for her. And amazingly enough, I actually get paid. She once said to me that humans can be divided into two types with two attributes: those who craft and search, and those who use and destroy. She made it clear to me that I wasn't someone who "crafted" but one who "searched" or some such, and that's why she hired me.

"Running a little late there, Kokuto," said an accusatory voice from the other room. It was Miss Toko, her patience obviously running thin. Well, the coffee maker's just about done, and the black liquid sits there, waiting to be drunk.

[][][][][][][][][][]

"Yesterday makes the eighth," Miss Toko says abruptly, while stubbing out her cigarette. "Soon people are going to take notice of their connection."

She is, of course, talking about the recent case of high school girls falling to their deaths. There's nothing else to talk about anyway, so I guess this was as good a topic as any. But wait…eight?

"Huh? Weren't there only six people?"

"A few more popped up while you still had sand in your eyes. All this started in June, and it's been going at about three per month. Maybe another one'll happen before the next three days are out, eh?" Miss Toko is in the habit of saying really ominous things, so I'm kind of used to it. I take a quick glance at the calendar, noticing that there's only three days left in August. For a moment, a flash of worry enters my mind for some reason, but I quickly dismiss it.

"They're saying the suicides have no relation, though," I remark. "Different schools, no friends of the third degree or anything like that. It could still turn out that the police are withholding information from the media to better their chances when they interview the perp…if this case even has one."

"What, Kokuto, you don't trust the police on this one? That sleep must have really done a number on you to suddenly be skeptical of people like that." She grins. As usual, her spite knows no bounds when her glasses are off.

"Because they didn't leave behind a suicide note, right?" I explain. "Suicidals usually leave behind a note or some sort of last message to the living. I mean, what is it six…erm, eight people now? At least one of them should have done it. That only means one of two things: that the police aren't publicizing the note so that it serves as leverage against a suspect, or it could mean a statistical improbability."

"Which by itself becomes the only thing connecting these incidents," says Miss Toko. "The girls weren't taking drugs, nor were they members of some weird cult. By all accounts their lives were perfectly mundane. Neither their family nor their friends know any reason why they would throw themselves off a building. So it follows that they probably killed themselves over some emotional or psychological distress, or perhaps to prove something. That's why they don't leave behind any last words."

"So you're saying that it's not that the police are hiding anything, it's that they truly didn't have any suicide note?" I ask.

"Well, statistically speaking, most people don't leave behind any note when they commit suicide…but yeah." Miss Toko leans back on her chair, sipping her coffee while looking at me funny. I put a mug to my own lip and tip it, tasting the bitter coffee inside. I think back on what she said, something nagging me in the reasoning.

How could there be no suicide note? It didn't fit. The girls were, as far as we knew, all happy and content, very much attached to the world of the living. In a situation where one is forced to die, final words are what you leave behind to cement that connection. Not doing so means you have nothing to leave to this world, and you can decide to bravely face that great unknown of death. A suicide without a note, or parting words, or even the remote chance of discovery of the incident: that would be the perfect suicide.

Jumping off a building, then, is far from the perfect suicide.

Such an exhibitionist act makes the suicide clear and attention-grabbing. In a way, the suicide and the resulting publicity itself results in having the air of a "suicide note", so to speak. If the suicidals picked as obvious and public a method as jumping off a building, then they did so knowing they would be seen by many. Publicity formed at least a part of their choice of death. In that case, why the lack of parting words at all?

I can think of only one reason. Perhaps, like Shiki said once, they were just accidents, or at the very least, they did not intend to die. Then they wouldn't have any reason to write a suicide note, just like running into a traffic accident while going home from school. Unfortunately, I can't fathom why you'd jump off from a building while taking your daily commute from school, though.

"There won't be any more girls hitting the pavement for a while after the eighth, 'least not ones related to these incidents." Shiki, now standing beside the window, joins the conversation.

"How could you possibly know that?" I say.

"How else? I checked. There were eight of them floating around that building. I took care of 'em, but they'll be there for a little while longer, even if it does make me sick." Shiki faces away from the window, posing with arms crossed. "Say, Toko, do all people end up flying that way when they bite the bullet?"

"No one really knows for sure. Everyone's different. All I can offer you is an observation." Miss Toko puts down her cup, her smile morphing into a more scholarly demeanor, as if she was about to teach the most important thing in the world. "The words 'flying' and 'falling' are inextricably tied to each other, because we humans can't fly by ourselves. And yet, as expected of men, the more we reach for the sky, the more we forget this. Even those who live after death can try and reach for this goal, to fall towards the sky, forgetting that it is the hubris of Icarus that led to his doom."

Shiki seemed perturbed by Miss Toko's cryptic response, more so than usual. I can only guess as to what offensive statement Miss Toko said that has Shiki in such a defensive attitude. I decide to break the mood.

"Er, I'm sorry ma'am, but I can't seem to understand the topic."

"Apologies, Kokuto. We're talking about the ghost at the Fujo Tower. I don't really know if it's the real thing or just some mage's illusion. I wanted to check, but if Shiki really killed it, then there's no way to know for sure now."

So it was about that. The conversations between Shiki and glasses-off-Miss Toko are always about the occult and the magical, so it wasn't that hard to guess anyway.

"You know that Shiki saw those girls floating around in the Fujo Tower, correct? Turns out there was another human figure flying around among those floating girls. Since they couldn't be removed, we figured perhaps that place was something akin to a net to them, or something along those lines."

In my mind, I am frowning at this story's sudden turn for the complex, and then, as if sensing my confusion, she offers her layman's summary of it.

"Well, to put it a bit more simply, there is one girl floating around that building, and tagging along with her are what looks like our famous suicide girls. I suspect that they're something like ghosts or some other supernatural occurrence. The end."

I nod my understanding, but the way Shiki put it, I gather that the deed was already done and taken care of. Once again, the story seems far past me. It's only been three months since I let these two get to know each other, but already I'm the one lagging behind on their peculiar conversations. Not that I had any particular interest in being involved in them either way. However, since being ignored was also an unacceptable outcome, I listen anyway. The way I'm stuck between their stranger world and my own willing or unwilling ignorance of it sort of fits me, in a way. It's one of those small blessings I can be thankful for.

[][][][][][][][][][]

"That sounds like a story out of a dime novel," I blurt out. Miss Toko nods her agreement, smiling. Shiki, on the other hand, is somehow growing more wound up, casting accusatory sidelong glances at me. Because provoking a reaction out of Shiki works about as often as Mercury in retrograde, I have to wonder if I did something colossally idiotic without my knowing again.

"But then, Shiki saw the ghosts only at the beginning of July, right?" I sound dumb for asking the obvious, but I do it just to confirm. "So there were only four ghosts back then, Shiki?"

A negative shaking of the head from Shiki. "No, no, there were eight, right from the start. I told you right? There wouldn't be any more suicides after the eighth. In their case, the order is reversed."

"Uh huh. You gotta clarify with me whether or not you've gained any future predicting powers like that one girl we talked to some time ago."

"It's not like that, Mikiya. It's more like that place…the air there isn't normal. How do I put this?" Shiki's voice uncharacteristically wavers a bit as a proper description fails to materialize. "It's sort of like a strange sensation of being in the middle of boiling water and freezing water."

As Shiki struggles with vocabulary, Miss Toko steps in to help.

"It means that time there flows differently. Understand that there is more than one way for time to progress. The speed upon which entropy acts on something differs for each object. The same holds true for our memories. When a person dies, the record of him existing doesn't disappear instantly. There are people who remember, people who have observed and watched over his life and death. As long as these exist, the memories…, or rather, their record of existence, doesn't suddenly disappear, but only fades into nothingness. If the observer of death was not a person, but instead a place that resonates to people such as those girls, then they will remain even after death as a sort of image, of wandering 'ghosts', or what have you. The only ones receptive to this image are the ones that share and keep the memory of these ghosts, such as close friends and family. And people like Shiki and me, of course."

Miss Toko lights another cigarette before continuing. "Entropy acts on memory too. People forget, and eventually the memories disappear. But on the roof of the Fujo Tower, the entropy of those memories are slower, as if the building itself doesn't want to forsake them. The record of their time alive hasn't caught up to their current state, and as a result, the memories, and the images of those girls remain, in that place where time is crooked and broken."

Miss Toko seems to finish her explanation, which I suspect managed to be even more puzzling than what Shiki would have eventually gotten to. So what she's saying is that, when something dies or is lost, that thing doesn't truly disappear, as long as someone remembers it. And that remembering it is to acknowledge its existence, and because of that, it can sometimes be seen again. That just sounds like deluding yourself.

Well, Miss Toko probably kept using the word "image" because it is something of a delusion, a thing that can't be real.

In a surprisingly frank display of annoyance, Shiki is led to that timeless impulse of headscratching. "Enough of these explanations, already. What I'm really worried about is _her._ My knife did a pretty good job of proving my point, but if there's actually some mage using projection, then this'll never end." Another solid glance comes my way. "I'm tired of being Mikiya's guardian, thank you very much."

"I agree completely, Shiki. I'll settle things with Kirie Fujo, so just go on and take Kokuto home…wait, he still has five hours to clock in, so you might want to sleep. You can use that place."

Miss Toko pointed to a spot on the floor that looks like it hasn't been cleaned for at least half a year, littered with paper like a dirty furnace. Shiki, naturally, ignores her.

"So what was she, anyway?" Shiki asks Miss Toko. The mage walks over to the window and stares outside, her footsteps inaudible, and with a cigarette still in her mouth. We don't really have any light in this room, not electric light anyway. All the light comes from outside, and in certain areas of the building where the sun doesn't reach, it can be surprisingly difficult to tell the time. In contrast, the view outside is clearly morning, perhaps somewhere closer to noon. For a few moments, Miss Toko stares silently at the sun-bathed panorama.

"Before, you could have said that she flew." She puffs out a cloud of smoke, indistinguishable now from the white sunlight. From my position, framed by the sunlight and smoke, she looked like some sort of mirage. "Kokuto, what would you associate with a high place? What imagery comes to mind?" The sudden question snaps me back into focus. The only thing I could think about was the time I went atop Tokyo Tower. I remember trying real hard to spot my house, but in the end I couldn't make it out among the many tall buildings I saw.

"Maybe…small things?"

"Trying a bit too hard there, Kokuto."

Well, fine, I didn't think that answer through too much anyway. I try to think of something else.

"Well, I can't really think of anything in particular, but I do think that a panoramic view is beautiful. Just the sight of the scenery is overwhelming." This was a more spontaneous response, which she somehow seems to note, acknowledging it with a little nod while still staring at the window. And like that, she continued to talk.

"Scenery seen from select vantage points is always wonderful. Even an otherwise mundane landscape becomes something special. Looking down at the world you live in, though, stimulates a different urge. In such a commanding view, there is but one impulse."

As the word "impulse" leaves her mouth, she cuts off her sentence.

An impulse isn't something that comes from reason or intelligence, not something that comes from within, but something that is triggered by an external force, even if one rejects it. Like a murderous, destructive urge. Then what is the destructive impulse that a view from on high brings?

"It's how far everything is. A view too wide makes clear the boundary between you and the world. People can only rest easy with things they are familiar with. Even with an accurate map telling you your exact location, you know that's only information. To us, the world only amounts to something we understand and feel from experience. The boundaries and connections of the world, and of countries, and of cities, are only constructs of the mind, not something we feel ourselves. But with a view too wide, there appear gaps in our understanding. You have a ten meter radius that you feel, and the ten kilometer space that you're looking down on. They're both one and the same, the same world that you've been living in, and yet the first one feels more real.

You see, now we have come upon a paradox. Rather than recognize the small world you can feel as the world you live in, you ascribe it to the wide world you can only see. But within this wide world, you cannot feel that you truly exist. Because the closer objects are to your person, the more sure you can be of their existence, of their reality. In this way, reason, represented by your knowledge, and experience, represented by instinct, will start to conflict. Eventually, one will lose, and confusion sets in.

'_Viewing the city from up here sure puts it into perspective. I can't believe my house was down there. Did the park always look that way? I didn't even know that street or that alley or that building ever existed! This is a city I've never seen before, like I've gone far, far away.' _Those are the sort of thoughts that run through your head in a panoramic view."

In a lull in her speech, I manage to sneak in a question which has been nagging me since the start.

"So, what, looking out from a vantage point is somehow bad now?"

"Only if you gaze for too long. Remember that in the old myths, traveling the sky was akin to traveling another world. To fly was to ascend to a higher world, or perhaps to meet one's final reward in the afterlife. Mortals who ascended the skies became mad, unless they armed themselves with charms or the power of reason. And always, lunacy was cured by returning to solid ground."

Now that she mentions it, I did have this indescribable urge to jump from the school roof once, just to see what would happen if I did. It must run through everybody's minds at some point, when looking at that view. Of course, I didn't really want to do it, but why did I think that way when it clearly leads to my own death? Why do other people think that way?

"Does that mean that, if only for a moment, you go mad?' After I mention the question, Miss Toko bursts into laughter.

"Kokuto, you have to understand that thinking that is normal. Dig into people's dreams and you find them dreaming the taboo, eventually. We possess the extraordinary ability of indulging our own fantasies with our own imagination. Though you are right in a way. What's important is that we know that the fantasy has its place. Well, I guess that's obvious. But in your example, it's less 'crazy' and more like a 'numbing of thought.'"

"Toko, this has gone on long enough." Shiki interrupts, sick of the one-sided conversation. Well, we have drifted quite far from the main topic so it wouldn't be uncalled for in this case.

"There's nothing long about it. In fact, were this an actual thought experiment, we'd only be ankle deep into it."

"Well, cut it down to a phrase, will you? When you and Mikiya talk, it's like a goddamn thesis committee."

Strong words, but words which I can accept have an all too valid point.

"Shiki…" Miss Toko starts, rubbing her temple in frustration, but Shiki continues to complain, ignoring the both of us.

"And then there's this business of views from high places. I hope you remember that just by walking around, we're already 'viewing from a high place' already." Air quotations by Shiki. "There's no 'normal view' by your logic."

Well, someone's wound up. As expected, Shiki's already trying to punch holes in Miss Toko's argument. Certainly, a person's eyes are higher than the ground, which would qualify them for a "high place", I guess. Miss Toko nods in approval at Shiki, and continues her speech, probably condensed now for the sake of Shiki's temper.

"Even if we count the fact that the ground isn't actually flat but at an angle, we also don't usually call our normal vision to be a 'commanding' or 'overlooking' view. There's a reason for that. Your vision isn't exactly as your eyes see it, but something more of a signal the mind interprets and comprehends. Protected as we are by our 'common sense', we don't perceive such sight as 'high', and we don't call it such. It's 'normal'…whatever nebulous value anyone might ascribe to that word.

Our mental perceptions, on the other hand, also stand perched on its own vantage point. Different minds perceive different things, but all are imprisoned, asleep in a paradigm of material reality. Awakened minds bearing a more malleable paradigm, such as those of mages, can bend its rules, but never truly break them. To cross that boundary is to become something more and less human. A god, but absent the restraint. And so Hypnos becomes Thanatos."

As she says this, Miss Toko continues to look out at the window, in a commanding view of the street, the town—perhaps the world. She's looking at the world with her feet firmly in the ground, which I thought was important for some reason. I suddenly remember my dream.

Before it ended, I remember the butterfly fell towards the ground. Were the butterfly not so intent to follow me, she could have flown more gracefully. If she had just floated and not flapped her wings so hard, she could have flown longer. But perhaps, seeing the dragonfly and how it flew, it could no longer bear to just float. That's why it flew.

Miss Toko threw her expended cigarette out the window. "The fluctuation at the Fujo Tower might have been her perception of the world. The uneasiness in the air that Shiki felt were the bars of the prison. A place steeped in numina."

A few seconds pass without Miss Toko saying a word, which Shiki and I take as a sign that she's finally finished talking. The long sigh and wandering eyes tell me that Shiki's melancholic demeanor calms down at last. "Bars of the prison, huh? I wonder if that girl was inside or outside." Saying this dismissively, Shiki's head is tilted to one side, tired of talking.

"Well, I'd say wherever you are, she's on the opposite side," counters Miss Toko.

* * *

><p>→／3<p>

It's 2:00 in the morning, and the bone in my nape creaks from the cold. I shiver in spite of myself, and I wonder if it's the chill that's doing it, or my own mind. For the moment, I cast aside my reservations and enter the Fujo Tower, no sight or sound of life indicating any sort of welcome for me. Only the electric light illuminating the cream-colored walls of the entrance hallway, a light that looked too artificial and lacking in human warmth that it ended up being more eerie than the darkness it was supposed to sweep away. At the entrance lies a card checker for the former tennants, now unused and broken. Without stopping, I pass by it, going through the hallway and into an elevator. The situation is the same as it looked outside: no people except for me. The elevator has one of those mirrors that people can use to ogle themselves while they wait. It reflects a person wearing a light blue kimono with a black leather jacket, with the lazy eyes of someone tired of doing this job.

I press the button that leads to the rooftop while looking at my reflection in the mirror. With nothing but the low hum of the elevator accompanying me, I wait as the world begins to rise.

For now until this mechanical box reaches the rooftop, this elevator is a prison. The events of the outside are from an entirely different world, an entirely different existence. For now, this is all that is real. I allow this thought to slip into my mind unbidden, though I should be focusing on the task at hand.

The sliding door opens with only the slightest hint of a sound, leading into a small storage room whose only feature is the door leading outside to the rooftop. The room has this oppressive lack of light that makes me think that the door to the roof opens to that different world I fleetingly felt, the world that I saw in the reflective circus of the buildings' windows. It's a boundary of emptiness. Crossing the room with my footsteps resounding against the narrow space, I open the door.

The room is black as pitch, but it melds into the now visible void of the endless night sky. My eyes take in the view of the city from on high. There was nothing special about the Fujo Tower. It had a perfectly constructed and level floor made of concrete, and a chain-link fence surrounding the roof. Aside from the water tank that stood atop the room I just exited out of, there isn't anything else here. Except for the view.

The height is at least ten stories higher than any building in the vicinity, giving it a lonely feeling. It's like being on top of a tall ladder, staring down into the depths of the world below you. If the world below were the ocean, then the scattered lights of buildings would be the anglerfish, the only lights in an otherwise black world where neither sunlight nor moonlight reach. A beautiful sight.

The world is sleeping, perhaps for eternity, but unfortunately only for the moment. The stillness grips my heart tighter than any cold wind, and it feels painful. Stars glitter in the sky like jewels, and the moon is out, brighter than anything. In my education at the family manor, I was taught that the moon was not the sun's mirror, but a window to a different reality. A polar opposite to stand as a gate to twilight.

The moon has long been associated with the arcane, femininity, and death. And as that moon shines brightly over our world, the figure of a woman floats eerily in the sky above, silhouetted harshly against the moonlight, accompanied by eight girls flying around her.

[][][][][][][][][][]

The floating woman specter is wearing a white cloth that looked like it could pass for a dress, and she has black hair that reaches down all the way to her waist. What little you can see of her arms and legs through the cloth reveal how slender she is. Her eyebrows, too, follow this mold, and her eyes hold inside them piercing cold, making her countenance one of the most beautiful I've seen. From her looks, I'd say she's in her early twenties, though it's probably foolish to attach anything like "age" to something like a ghost. And yet she doesn't possess the distorted air of a ghost that marks them so well. She looks as if she could pass muster for being alive. The girls swimming in the air around her, who fade in and out of sight, look more the part. Above me, this lonely procession continued; the womanly figure, and the girls floating in a protective formation. I found it unsettling, not so much repulsive, but more like…

"I see. This is all a spell of yours, isn't it?" I sneer.

I didn't notice it before now, but I note the woman's face again, seeing some inhuman quality to its beauty. Were the wind blowing strongly tonight, her smooth black hair, each strand finely combed, would strike an otherworldly chord in anyone's heart. Otherworldly, and inhuman.

"Then I'm gonna have to kill you."

As if noticing me for the first time, the woman's eyes finally cast downward, and I return the favor, our eyes taking in each other's measure. No more words are spoken. None are needed.

From inside my jacket, I draw a blade, a fine weapon seven inches in length.

The woman's gaze from above fills me with the urge to kill. The beautiful white dress sways in the air. The slender arm moves like water, and points an accusatory finger at me. Those slender limbs no longer seem beautiful, and look more fragile now.

"Like a bone, or a lily."

Tonight, there was no wind, and my voice reverberated in the night sky.

_You can fly._ When the woman points her finger at me, I hear a voice intruding in my consciousness; perhaps hers, were she able to speak. It buries itself inside, digging in, and telling me I can fly. The mental assault makes me lose balance for a moment, but with only one step I regain composure. Overhead, the woman hesitates. Now I see.

_You must fly._ She tries again, this time stronger, more assertive. It is met with similar resistance. And then, finally, _finally,_ my Eyes look at her.

And there they are. One on each leg, one on her back, a little one in her left chest. I can see the lines, separating her body into little sections. The one in her chest is likely the best target. Hitting that'd mean instant death. This woman could be some sort of image, some delusion, or a ghost. But in the end it doesn't matter. Because with my Eyes, even gods can die.

Holding my knife in a reverse grip, edge-out, I raise my right hand, narrowing my gaze at my enemy while doing so. But she attacks me again.

_I can fly. I can fly. I loved the sky since I was a child. I flew yesterday too. I can fly higher today. Freely. Peacefully. Smiling. I have to go quickly. To where? To the sky? To freedom? Let's escape from reality! Yearn for the sky! Fight gravity. Be restless enough not to stay in one place. Fly unconsciously._

_Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go._

_GO!_

"You gotta be fucking kidding, right?"

I raise my free left hand. The mental suggestion doesn't work. I don't even lose my balance anymore.

"Can't seem to take a liking to flying. Don't know how to feel alive—been that way for a while—so I don't know the pain of living. To be honest, I don't really give a damn about you," I murmur, almost singing it. It's true though. Joy and sorrow, freedom and restraint; I can't feel any of them. That's why I can't see this fuss about being liberated from pain.

"But taking him was a big mistake. Finders keepers, and I found him first. You're going to give him back."

My left hand grabs the air like a rope, and I pull back. The woman and the other girls are pulled towards me, like a fisherman plucking a good catch.

The woman's expression changes. She tries her last, vain hope of controlling me, trying her best to put as much power into her suggestion.

_FALL!_

And again, I disregard it completely. With all the firmness in my voice I can muster, I answer her back.

"_You_ fall."

As she comes toward me, I plunge the knife deep into her chest, as naturally as I do stabbing a fruit, and so exquisitely performed that it gives even the victim pause for admiration. The knife runs from front to back, clean through her.

She doesn't bleed. Unable to move from the shock of being stabbed straight through, she convulses just once. With only a nudge and a slight movement of my right arm, I fling away the useless "corpse", and the incorporeal body slips through the fence without a sound into the shining city below. Her hair still lies motionless, and her dress embraces the darkness, a white flower sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

And with that, I depart from the roof, the ghosts still floating in the air behind me.

* * *

><p>／4<p>

With the impact of steel lightning on my chest, I awaken.

It was a staggering attack, one that proved how strong my opponent was, if one can drive through a person's chest that easily. But it wasn't a strike born out of anger, or desperation. A singular thrust delivered with no wasted energy, one that would slide easily in between bone and sinew.

It wasn't the pain that hurt me. Rather, it was the feeling of me being ripped apart, and the sound of the knife plunging deep, deep into my heart. That incomparably bittersweet fear. My body shook and trembled at the thought of it. My silent weeping contained my uneasiness, my loneliness, my will to live. My tears aren't from the pain either, or from the fear of the encounter. It was for the brush of death that I had never before experienced, but had now fallen in love with, even though I pray every night for the strength to live.

[][][][][][][][][][]

I hear the distinct sound of the door opening, a sound that Ihave grown very familiar with. Even though I know it's nighttime, the far off glow of the buildings in the city induces the same sensation as sunlight. It's not yet time for my regular examination, so the person who came must be a visitor. I have a private room, so I'm almost always alone. My sole company here is the bed, the cream colored curtain which never flutters in the wind, and the lights from the outside world, ghostly yet radiant.

"Excuse me. You would be Kirie Fujo, correct?" Even her deep voice can't mask that the visitor is a woman. After greeting me, she goes to my bedside, ignoring the chair and choosing instead to stare down at me coldly. A frightening person, one who I feel can destroy me with a snap of her fingers if she so wished. Yet, in my heart, I still feel happy. It's been many years since I had any sort of visitor. I couldn't turn her away, even if she is Death herself come to take me.

"And you are the enemy, correct?" I reply. The woman nods. Perhaps it may just be the light from the faint shining beacons of the city, but when I try to focus my vision on the visitor, I can barely see her. Her clothes are without blemish, reminding me of the neatness of a school teacher. It makes me rest more easily, somehow. The gaudy orange necktie she wears contrasts sharply with her white blouse, however, making her look vaguely amusing.

"Do you know that child who stabbed me?" I say apprehensively, "or perhaps it is you?"

"No, fortunately. I'm an acquaintance of your attacker and your victim. One of them anyway. We meet the strangest people, you and I."

She takes out something from her breast pocket, but puts it away just as quickly. "Apologies. Smoking isn't allowed here I suppose? For someone with lung damage like you, it would be like poison." I guess what she took out was a cigarette carton. The image of her smoking fits her look, I think, like a mannequin with lizard pumps and a bag.

"But it isn't just the lung, is it?" Her voice is one of curiosity as she looks me over. "Certainly, that's where it all started, but there are tumors all over your body. Sarcoma is only the beginning, but it's worse inside. Your hair is the only thing that's left. You have much strength. A normal person would have died long before as this sickness ate them alive." She pauses a moment to look at me straight, then offers a smile.

"How long has this gone on, Kirie Fujo?"

I can't answer. "I have no idea. I stopped keeping count." Because there's no meaning to it. Because dying was the only way out of here.

She murmurs a soft-breathed "I see."

I hated her voice that lacked any compassion or hate. The only thing I can receive from people is their sympathy, and she denies me even that.

"Shiki told me the cut was around the area of the left ventricle and the aorta, so it might have been the mitral valve. Is it all right?" She says such an absurd thing so normally. The peculiarity of her manner of speech catches me off guard, and I smile despite myself.

"You're a strange one, aren't you? If my heart had really been cut, then we wouldn't be able to talk like this, would we?"

"Quite right. I was only confirming." I see. She was a friend of the person who stabbed me after all, perhaps trying to tie up loose ends on the battle that took place in the rooftop. "But it won't be long until it affects you as well. Shiki's Eyes are potent, perhaps even beyond what that child knows. The sympathetic connection between your double existences means that the spell will reach you in time. There are a few inquiries I need to make, which is why I'm here." She means the "other" me when she mentions the double existence, I'd imagine.

"Because I haven't personally gone to the Fujo Tower, I haven't seen your floating image there," she continues. "What was it really?"

"I don't know, to be honest. For the longest time now, the scenery out-side the window was the world to me. I looked down on the panorama, watching the seasons fly past, and the coming and going of people in the hospital. My voice is never heard, and my hands never reach anything. And I grew to curse this view as I continued to suffer alone in this room."

The woman's eyebrows crease as she contemplates on something. "I see now. So you really are a woman of the Fujo bloodline. Your dynasty is an old one, and pure. It's thought that you and your dynasty granted blessings of providence, but now I see that your true abilities lie in cursing. The clue was in your name, as Fujo can also mean "defile." A fitting name, don't you think?"

Dynasty.

My family.

But that too is a chapter of my life that's forever gone. Not long after I was hospitalized, both my parents and my brother met an accident and lost their lives. My medical expenses have been paid by a man who calls himself my father's friend, a curiously named man that had the air of a monk about him.

"But a curse is not so easily performed. What was it that you wished for so hard?" I can't help but smile a little bit. Finally, we have something that even she doesn't know about.

"Have you known what it is to look down on the outside world for so long? To look at such a view for years and years, even as your consciousness erodes? I have hated, cursed, and feared the outside world for so long now, seeing it all from on high. And one day, something happened. It suddenly seemed as if I was in the sky above the hospital courtyard, the one outside my window. I could look down on everything. My body and mind were still in the room, but I felt my vision fly in the sky. But I still couldn't move from here, and my vision didn't go anywhere beyond this hospital."

"Your mind must have gained correspondence with the surroundings, considering how long you've been here. Your spatial awareness must have been quite strong." For the second time now, she pauses before she says, "Is that the time when you started to lose your eyesight?"

It seems there is little about me this woman doesn't know even before she entered the room. It's true, though. I will soon be fully blind. I nod my answer.

"Yes. I could do nothing as the world slowly turned into nothingness. At first, I thought that everything was just turning into a deep darkness. But it was the void I was gazing into. But this didn't bother me, because my real eyes were floating high up in the sky. I can only see the view around the hospital, but I was never going to get out of here anyway. Nothing really changed, if you think about it. Nothing ever changed…"

I have a short coughing fit. It's been such a long time since I talked to anyone for this long, it hurts my throat and lungs, and focusing too much makes my eyes burn.

"I see," she replies after I compose myself. "You projected your consciousness in the sky. But if that was your consciousness, then you should truly be dead, since Shiki killed your 'ghost' consciousness."

In truth, I've actually been thinking that as well. This woman keeps saying the name Shiki, who I assume to be my assailant. How was that person able to stab me? The me floating in the Fujo Tower can't touch anything, but also cannot be affected in turn. Yet this Shiki slashed me as if that was my real body.

"Answer me. Was that truly you in the Fujo Tower?" she asks with a tone of curiosity laced with the forcefulness that has never left her voice since she came inside the room.

"It…wasn't. I only stare at the sky, while she exists in it. That other me turned its back on me. Self abandons self." Wording it that way made it seem like more than an affectation. I did truly turn my back on the world, as it had abandoned me. And I abandoned myself, of any hope that my sickness would get better. Being separated from the world outside the window and unable to break through that boundary no matter how hard I prayed every night, both me and the other me couldn't put our feet firmly on the ground, and were resigned to an ephemeral, fragile existence. We share that similarity, despite parting with each other. I suppose it's what this woman called a "sympathetic connection".

She draws a short breath, perhaps in surprise. It's the first time that this person has shown any sort of uncalculated emotion, and it surprises me a little. "So it's not that your consciousness was separated, but that you were acting on two vessels with one state of mind. Someone else gave you this vessel. It's unlike any work I've seen yet, I understand that much." A small nod before she regards me with a frighteningly disappointed look. "But why go through so much just to lure children to throw themselves off buildings? Why were you not content with just looking at the world?"

Ah, those poor, enviable girls. What happened to them still saddens me. But I had nothing to do with them. They fell because they wanted to.

"You used the image of you at the Fujo Tower as more of a channel for your will, didn't you? You reached out to them in sleep, in their dreams of flight. And in those dreamscapes, at least one or two of them were probably on the verge of awakening to magic, which is why you could notice them in the mess of other minds in this city, and why you can snare them so easily. But it was you who made them think about flying while they were outside of sleep, even as they weren't really 'awake'. They tried to fly, and they got the natural result of trying to do the impossible."

Yes. In the fever dreams, they always fly around me, and I thought that we could be friends. But they never noticed me, never talked to me, never touched me. All they did was float around like fishes without consciousness. I thought that, when they were outside of sleep, in the times when they were conscious, they could notice me. That was the only way I knew…

"You're trembling, friend. Are you cold?" The woman's voice returns to its previous icy demeanor. I clutch myself as the unearthly wind fails to subside, despite the window being closed. "I'd like to ask you one more thing. Why yearn so much for the sky of a world you so detest?"

A difficult question. I answer to the best of my ability. "In the sky, you can fly as far as you want, go as far as you can go, because it never ends. I thought I could find a world that I didn't hate, and a world that could accept me in turn."

"Did you find that world?"

My shivering doesn't subside, the chill acting like invisible hands shaking my body. My eyes sear with pain from being focused for so long. I nod yes.

"Before I sleep every night, I fear that I will not wake up the next day. I fear that one day, it will be morning, and my eyes will never open again. But it's also the reason why I feel alive. Strange, isn't it? My hollow shell of a body and poor excuse for a life is always shadowed by death, but it's that shadow which I rely on to keep myself alive." Yes, that's the reason why I yearn for death more than life. Death is release. To fly without end, to go anywhere one wishes…that's the world I can yearn for.

"So you took my acquaintance as a companion to your world?"

"No. At that time, I didn't know. I was still longing for life, and while doing so, I wanted to fly. I thought I could do so if I was with him. Those times are long gone now."

"You and Shiki aren't so different from each other. Both of you believe you can find salvation in someone like Kokuto. It isn't wrong to think you can feel alive and be saved by someone else."

Kokuto. I see. So this Shiki confronted me to take him back. Even though I know now that my savior is also the harbinger of Death, I feel no regrets. "He's still a child. Always looking at the sky. Always so honest. That's why I thought he could take me anywhere if he put his mind to it. I…I wanted him to take me away from all of this." I start to cry, and it stings my eyes so much they seem to scream in pain.

It's not really because I'm sad. What happiness it could have been had he been able to spirit me away! But it will never come true. It was always a far dream. But it was such a beautiful dream, and because of that I couldn't stop the tears. In my eternity in this prison, it was the only dream I've had in so many years, the only delusion I allowed myself.

"But Kokuto has no interest in the sky. Those who long for the sky are the farthest from it. Ironic, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is. People always seem to have the things we don't need. I could never truly fly. Floating was all I could do." The burning in my eyes subsides, a feeling that will probably never happen again. The wind's invisible hands grip my spine and make me tremble even more strongly.

"I've been a burden long enough. This question will have to be my last. What are you going to do after this? I can cure the creeping pain Shiki gave you through your other vessel, if that is your wish." I don't answer her, save for shaking my head no. I can't see for sure, but it seems like she's frowning. "I understand. There are two ways to escape: escape without a purpose, and escape with a purpose. I call the former 'floating', and the latter 'flight'. You are the only one that decides which of the two your view of the world from on high was. But you don't choose these paths because of the weight on your soul. We don't choose the path we take because of the sins we carry. But we carry our sins on the path we choose."

After saying her parting words, the woman leaves. She never said her name, but I know now that she didn't need to. I don't doubt for a moment that she knows what I am going to do. Because for me there is no choice: I can't fly. I can only float. I can't do what she says because I'm weak. That's why I can no longer resist this temptation: The flash of realization when I was stabbed in the heart. The overwhelming torrent of death and the pulse of life. I thought I no longer had anything left, but I was left with such a simple, sweet thing.

Death.

It was not the nonexistent wind, but death, that little fear, that gripped my spine in these last moments. I need to experience more of death to feel the joy of life, the glory of everything I had ignored in my life until now. But that death I experienced on that night, the pain that pierced me like a needle, like a sword, like lightning, would be impossible to replicate. I cannot hope for such a vivid end now. But I will try to come as close to it as much as I can. I still have a few days to think on it, but the method need not even be said.

I think my last moment should be spent on a high place, a place where I can look down on a panorama of the world, and fall back to the embrace of the reality that has rejected me so.

* * *

><p>Panorama／<p>

The sun has already fallen as we leave the abandoned building Miss Toko calls home. Shiki's apartment is quite close by, but my apartment is about twenty minutes away by train. Shiki's groggy pace and an unsteady walk remind me of the lack of sleep mentioned earlier, and I stay close beside just in case it's needed. Out of the blue, Shiki asks me a strange question.

"Hey, Mikiya. Do you think suicide is right?"

"Hmm, let me think on that…," I say, trying to drum up a good answer. "Well, let's put it this way. Say I had a terribly deadly retrovirus, such that me just staying alive threatens all of Tokyo. If dying meant everyone would be saved, then maybe I'd kill myself."

"What in the hell? That's such a far-fetched scenario it hurts my brain." Shiki makes a disappointed face.

"Let me finish, alright? Think about it for a moment. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't have the will to live while the whole of Tokyo sees me as the carrier of a virulent plague. Choosing suicide would be the easier path. An instant of determination, or a lifetime; I think you can tell which is the hard choice. And that's what it boils down to, isn't it? Death is the easy choice. And when push comes to shove, I don't truly think I have what it takes to make the hard decision."

After that, we continue to walk in silence, leaving me to think more about what I said. In my scenario, sacrificing yourself might certainly be the right thing. It might even be called heroic, another one for the books. But choosing death for yourself, no matter the practicality of such an action, seems the foolish thing to do. Struggling through the slings and arrows allows us to put ourselves to right, and emerge as better people. That's true bravery, which I don't think I could muster. I don't say it though, since I feel like Shiki is getting annoyed at me again, looking at me doubtfully after my answer.

"Anyway," I try to conclude awkwardly, "Each person has his own answers, I guess."

"You're different, though," says Shiki, as if reading my mind. Shiki said it in the usual cold front, granted, but it feels as if there's a compliment in there somewhere. Slightly taken aback, I couldn't bring myself to answer it, and we continue to walk through the city silently. Pretty soon I can hear the the bustle of people and the noise of engines. It sounds like we're nearing the city's main street, with its ostentatious display of lights and sounds, accompanied by the wave of people commuting home after a day's work. I can just make out the department stores in the distance, and not too far after that is the train station.

Shiki stops suddenly.

"Mikiya, stay over at my place tonight."

"What in th—"

Shiki takes me by the shoulder in a gesture firmly in the "just fucking do it, c'mon" variety. Shiki's apartment is closer, and it would be easier that way, but I don't think I really should on moral grounds.

"It's all right, really," I try to say. "It'd be boring even if I do go there. Or are you saying there's something you need me to do?" I know there really wasn't anything, so this should have been the end of the discussion, and yet Shiki looks at me accusatorily, like I was at fault.

"Strawberry."

"Er…"

"Those goddamn ice cream cups you bought a while back. They're still there. Eat the damn things."

"Well, I suppose I did buy them." Got me there. I bought that on a hot day on my way to Shiki's home. Was it really that hot? It's almost September after all. Well, whatever. Not like it matters in the grand scheme of things. Shiki's pulling any excuse to get me to stay, and I suppose I have no choice but to follow. But I can at least make a feeble attempt to strike back. There is a topic—serving almost like a trigger—which, when brought to discussion, makes Shiki mad but unable to retort back properly. It's about something I really want Shiki to do, but in this matter, the universe seems to have seen it proper to bestow upon Shiki the stubbornness of mules.

"I can see there's no persuading you. All right, I'll stay over. But Shiki…" Harsh eyes look at me, and I respond with as serious a face I can muster. "'Eat the damn thing?' Such unseemly words. I'd really like it if you did something about that. I mean, you _are_ a girl after all."

Right on target. After I say "girl," she points a finger at her lips and says "Hey, my mouth, my choice of words. Got it?"

* * *

><p>Panorama／End<p>

That was the day when, led on by nothing except an impulse of curiosity, I took the main avenue on the way home. It wasn't a shortcut, and I didn't plan on passing by any particular place there. It was just something I decided to do on a whim.

This part of the avenue was full of skyscrapers and tall condos, some old, more of them new, while others were abandoned husks, all commingled into one crowded skyline. I'd wager everybody in the city, including me, was tired of looking at them day in and day out. While walking beside the buildings, I suddenly saw something fall from a roof to the concrete sidewalk a ways ahead of me.

It was a person.

In the moment that that person fell, I heard a sickening sound. The wet, raw sound you associate with the kind of things you don't want happening anywhere near you. The kind of sound you never really get to hear often. Judging from the height that the person fell from, it was clear that whoever he or she was died the instant it hit pavement.

As I drew closer to the point of impact, I was able to scrutinize what happened more clearly. All that was left, all that my mind could take in, was the scarlet trail seeping across the asphalt; the frail, bone-like limbs, and the long, black hair, which still retained some of its living beauty.

And that dead face.

The scene struck my mind with the image of a flower pressed between the pages of an old, musty tome. It all seemed vaguely familiar. I knew what happened here. In the end, I suppose she chose the true slumber, instead of the lie.

A throng of people had already begun to gather around, and Azaka and I soon had to work our way through them, avoiding the crowd.

"Miss Toko, that was a jumper, wasn't it?"

"I suppose," I answer almost absent-mindedly. My part in this case had long since played out. Society had better things to do than psychoanalyze a jumper that just decided to take a tumble out of a building. In the end, they'd say one suicide is no different from the next. Kirie's last wish, right up to the end, was not flight, or even floating, but to fall. A pity, but it's best not to dwell on it for long.

"I've heard there were quite a lot of cases last year, but I guess it's still a trend, huh? I don't really understand what goes through these people's minds, though. Would you, Miss Toko?"

I nod my head; another vague answer. I look up at the sky, training my vision on an illusion of the light.

"She had no reason to kill herself," I say finally. "She just wasn't able to fly."


	2. ・・・and nothing heart

April 1995.  
>I met her.<p>

／The First Homicide Inquiry

* * *

><p>／1<p>

A cool breeze blows through the mansion, unexpected when it was just the end of summer. The wind carries tidings of autumn, and it makes me want to take an evening stroll again. I'm putting on my shoes, when a voice from behind me spoke.

"Lady _Shiki_, please do come home early this evening."

It is Akitaka, my servant. I ignore the impositions on his ever-monotonous voice, as always, and make my way out of the entrance hall. Past the courtyard, past the garden, and past the large gate barring entry into the house, and I'm finally out. Darkness lay beyond this point, there being no light outside the main grounds itself. There is neither sight nor sound of any person except for me.

It was midnight, and it would soon be the first day of September. The bamboo thickets surrounding the periphery of the mansion rustled in the light breeze, bringing to mind images of wicked monsters beyond them. Walks through uneasy silences such as these are the only thing I derive pleasure from.

As the night grows deeper, the darkness draws closer. I think I walk through this lifeless town because I want to be alone. Or perhaps because I want to think I'm alone. Either way, in this world, it'd be hard to be completely left alone anyway. But the city has its ways. I veer off from the main avenue, taking a detour through a narrow alleyway.

I turn sixteen this year. I'm a first year student at a private high school. It's kind of pointless, really. No matter what I do, the mansion and the dynasty is my future. I chose the school just because it was close to my house and it would cut down on my commute time, but looking back on it, that might have been a mistake.

The alley is dark, save for one streetlight flickering nervously like a beacon. It reminds me of someone.

I've been quite restless lately, even during these evening strolls. It's all because of that guy, who keeps popping up in my head whenever I least expect it, and whenever I least like it.

Being in high school didn't change anything. I couldn't grow close to anyone, and they couldn't grow close to me. I didn't know why exactly, but maybe it's because I easily express what I think in my behavior. That is to say, I'm a misanthrope. I couldn't come to like people ever since I was a child. Being a person, I never liked myself either. I didn't hate people, not really. It didn't stop them from thinking that way, though. It wasn't long before my schoolmates got the picture, and within a month, people stopped trying to ingratiate themselves with me.

Not that I didn't like a quiet environment either, so that state of affairs suited me perfectly. But I should have known better than to think it would last. There is the one classmate who treated me like a friend, a person with a surname that sounded like a French poet. The one outstanding quality I can attribute to him: annoying. So very, very annoying.

**I see the shadow of a person in the distant streetlight.**

_He pops into my mind again, him and his dumb smile._

**Something about that man seemed strange.**

_I think back on it later._

_Why?_

**I follow him into an alley.**

_Why did I have such a rush of excitement?_

[][][][][][][][][][]

Inside the alley, it's like an entirely different world. The alley is a cul-de-sac, with the buildings forming walls all around it. Because of this, no sunlight shone upon it even on bright afternoons. Honestly, it looked more like a room than an alley. There was once one homeless person who lived in this dead space, but not today. The walls of this alley just got a brand new paint job. There is a wet, sticky quality to the ground, and the usual smell of rotten food is commingled with an even stronger scent.

All around me is a sea of blood. Bodily fluids seep and flow through the alley, and the sweet, sticky smell pierces my nostrils. In the center of it all is the corpse. Whatever face he donned in death can't be seen anymore. His arms were severed, and the legs became stumps around the knee area, pressurized blood pouring out of them.

A world so different, even the darkness of night was being overwhelmed by the bold crimson of blood. It made me so happy. Gracefully, elegantly, I touch the blood running on the ground, the sleeves of my light blue kimono turning a deep red. I streak the liquid on my lips, and a drop slips down lazily across my face. My body shakes in utter ecstasy, as if in a trance. The first lipstick I ever had.

* * *

><p>／2<p>

As summer vacation draws to a close, a new semester of high school begins. Nothing really changes in life, least of all high school. The clothes of the students change to reflect the approaching cold of autumn, but apart from that small trifling thing, there is nothing else. The same old routine, day in and day out.

As for me, I've never worn anything other than a kimono my entire life. Akitaka tried to get me clothes "befitting a woman of my sixteen years", but I never even thought of putting them on. Lucky for me, then, that the school I go to allows you to wear anything you want, so I actually went to school in my traditional dress. Actually, I wanted to wear the formal style of kimono, but if I did that, I'd have to spend the entirety of P.E. just to change clothes (which may not be so bad), so I made a compromise with a one-layer yukata.

I did worry a bit about what to wear in the cold winter months, but a solution presented itself yesterday. During break time _he_ approached me in his usual crude manner, asking if I felt cold.

"Not right now, no," I replied. "But perhaps in a few more weeks."

He frowned, as if reading my mind. "You're wearing that in the winter too?"

Wanting the conversation to end as quickly as possible, I answered directly. "Without fail. There's no need to worry yourself, however. I can wear something over it, after all."

"Wow, I didn't figure there was anything you could possibly wear over a kimono." With that, he walked away, puzzled at my answer. It was something I thought up at the moment, but not wanting to lie, I decided to buy a warm leather jacket. I'll wear it when winter comes, but for now, it stays in my closet.

[][][][][][][][][][]

And just like that, we ended up eating lunch together every day. He invited me, and I couldn't refuse out of politeness. We had our meals at the roof of the school building, where there were pairs of boys and girls just like us idling their lunch time.

Today's lunch break is just like any other, and I'm eyeing the other couples when he suddenly talks to me. I had already planned to ignore him, but he says something that I couldn't ignore.

"Murder. It happened on the last day of summer vacation. It was on the western wing of the commercial district. There's an embargo on the media, though, so it hasn't been reported yet."

"…That isn't very nice, is it?" I say nervously.

"Yeah. It's a weird case, too. Apparently the suspect cut off the victim's hands and feet and left him there to die. The crime scene was a mess, and they had to cordon off the entire location. What's worse is that the suspect is still at large." "You say the suspect cut off the arms and legs? Can people die from just that?"

"Blood loss would cause a lack of oxygen in the body, but in this case I'd say circulatory shock came first," he says while chewing his food. Outwardly, he looks like a calm, innocent young man, but in the end I suppose these are the sorts of things he really wants to talk about. I suppose one of his relatives is in the police force, or at least has connections there. Surely not too high a standing, however, else he wouldn't be leaking information out like this. "Oh, I'm sorry. I guess this has nothing to do with you, _Shiki_."

"It's quite alright…but Kokutō, this isn't really a meal time topic, don't you think?" I complain.

He offers only a simple nod in reply, barely even registering his faux pas. Good grief. Now, thanks to him, I can't stomach eating the tomato sandwich I just bought.

[][][][][][][][][][]

And so I capped of the end of summer and welcome the coming of autumn by hearing such a morbid rumor. The life that I thought would never change would soon receive a rude awakening.

[][][][][][][][][][]

It's been raining hard since morning. The clacking of my footsteps on the school corridor mixed with the pitter-patter sound of the raindrops. School has concluded for the day, and not a single soul could be found inside the grounds at this hour. Normally, there would still be students doing club activities, but the murder incident that Kokutō told me about had finally gone public, and club activities have since been temporarily suspended.

Akitaka told me in the drive to school earlier this morning that it had already reached four murders this month alone. That's what blew this wide open. The suspect remained as yet free from the law, and whatever personality, character, or motive he might have for doing this isn't yet known. In fact, marking the suspect as male might even be too hasty right now. There are no common points connecting the victims, except for the fact that they were all taking a walk quite late in the evening. It really is quite a different story when it's happening to your own city instead of some remote and far away town. Students stop hanging out after school and go home immediately, and everyone goes home in groups. The vise grip the murderer has on the city is so tangible I can almost touch it. Even I'm affected, since the police go on patrols at 9 o' clock in the evening. I can't even go out to do my nightly strolls.

"Four murders…" I whisper under my breath. Four times, I've…

"Ryōgi?" someone calls out suddenly. I turn towards the direction of the voice and see a man I don't recognize. He's wearing blue jeans and a white shirt, both of them quite plain and unsatisfactory. He must be someone in a higher grade level than me.

"Yes, that would be me. What is it?"

"Oh, please don't glare at me with those cold eyes of yours. Are you looking for Kokutō?"

What a foolish man. I could see right through his fake smile.

"I was about to go home. I have no idea how Kokutō factors into that."

"Is that so?" The drawl in his voice was practically audible at this point. "That's where you're wrong, and you know it. That's why you're irritated. It isn't good to take it out on someone else. It can be easier to blame anyone other than yourself. It's become a habit for you, hasn't it?" He chuckles at a joke funny only to himself, but continues. "Ryōgi… don't you think four times is a bit too much?"

"What?" Inadvertently, I take a step back. The man smiles yet again, a satisfied smile I now realize looks similar to my own.

"I've wanted to talk to you for so long now. Now that I have, it's time to bid you farewell." After that, he walks away, the sound of his footsteps echoing in the dim, empty hall. It produced a vaguely disgusted feeling inside me. I don't even want look at him, so I head towards the school entrance.

After changing out of my school shoes, I head outside only to have the rain greet me. Akitaka, who was supposed to pick me up, evidently isn't here yet. On rainy days such as this one, he would always come by to give me a ride, but he is obviously late. I'm too lazy to bother changing shoes again, so I decide to take shelter from the rain in the shade of the entryway.

The rain looks faintly like a veil, and it makes the campus grounds look as if they were encased by fog. The winter chill makes the pale whiteness of my breath visible.

I don't know how much time passed by, but before I could notice, Kokutō had appeared at my side.

"I have an umbrella," he says awkwardly.

"It's alright. I have someone picking me up. You should hurry up and head home," I urge.

"In a moment. I thought I'd stay here until your driver got here. If that isn't too much trouble?"

Without waiting for me to answer, he leans against the concrete wall of the entrance. I wasn't thinking on what Kokutō was going to say or about to say. In fact, I planned on systematically ignoring him until such time that I could leave.

A miracle. He's actually quiet for once. I can only hear the sound of the falling raindrops. Kokutō wasn't talking at all. I turned to him only to see that, with a satisfied look on his face, he had already closed his eyes. I thought that he was sleeping, as unlikely as that may be, but I hear him singing under his breath. I know it was a famous song, but I couldn't remember the title.

Truly a miracle. Much later when I got home, I asked Akitaka what the song was, and it turned out to be "Singing in the Rain."

Kokutō didn't speak. We weren't even a meter apart. For us to be this close and not talking made me a bit unsettled. It was an awkward situation, but the silence wasn't at all painful. Strange. Why was this silence calming? But then the silence frightened me, as suddenly as I warmed to it. Instinct raced in my mind, telling me that if it stayed like this, he would come out.

"KOKUTŌ!"

"Yes?"

With a jump, he opens his eyes and stands straight.

"What happened? Is something wrong?" he says while looking at me oddly. I see myself reflected in his eyes. Looking at each other like that, it was probably the first time I really saw Mikiya Kokutō, still just a boy, with a boy's face, and a gentle disposition. He had black hair which he didn't style in any particular way, and similarly black eyes, where he wore stupid glasses that even little children would find atrocious. He wore no accessories, and his only concession to fashion was his insistence on wearing an all-black ensemble all the time. It has always puzzled me why he always gave a mind to anything I did.

"Where…" I look down, trying my damndest to think that the ground is the most interesting in the world. "Where were you before you came out here?"

"In the student council room. One of our upperclassmen is dropping out of school, and we held something like a farewell party for him. His name's Lio Shirazumi. He said he's dropping out because he found something he wanted to do. It surprised me, seeing as he was one of those quiet, unsocial types." Lio Shirazumi. I can't say I've heard of the person. But Kokutō knows a lot of people I don't. The class sees him as a friend to everyone, and he has some small popularity with the female upperclassman population.

"I invited you too, didn't I? I told you when we said goodbye to each other yesterday, but you never showed up in the student council room. I looked for you in the classroom, but there was no one there."

He did indeed invite me, but I would've just spoiled the mood by going there. That, and I thought Kokutō inviting me was just him being his usual polite self. He didn't really expect me to go…did he?

"Oh, so you were serious?"

"Of course I was! What did you think, _Shiki_?" Kokutō, understandably, gets mad, not because of what I said but what I thought he said. I've never really experienced someone being angry at me, and it confuses me. From that moment on I sink into silence and wait with my mouth shut. I don't think there's ever been a day that I wanted Akitaka to come quickly as badly as this one. Not long thereafter, the car entered the front gate, and I say an awkward goodbye to Kokutō.

[][][][][][][][][][]

When the sun began to set, and it grew darker and darker, the rain finally stopped. Putting on my red leather blouson, I head outside to clear my head. The night sky overhead is in turmoil. The clouds that blanketed the sky only occasionally gave way to the moon and the stars. In the city, policemen in uniform and plainclothes alike patrolled the streets, and I made my way to the riverbank in hopes of avoiding them.

Wet asphalt reflects the dim glow of the streetlights. From afar, I hear the menacing metallic rumbling of a train. That means the train viaduct is near. Almost arbitrarily, I decide to head towards that direction, but I stop short upon reaching it when I see someone there.

Slowly and purposefully, I approach.

Another train passes overhead, probably tonight's last ride. The noise is louder this time, since I'm closer, and it sounds like rolling thunder. The rumble reverberates as loudly as if I was in a sealed room, and I have to cover my ears if I don't want to go deaf. After the train passes, however, a solemn sort of silence descends under the viaduct.

Without streetlight or moonlight, this place is in complete darkness. That might be for the best. Red liquid is spread all around the riverbank, yet even this is almost black because of the lack of light. This would be the fifth. The weeds around here are overgrown, but the corpse it surrounds looks like a single solitary flower, red and artificial. The face is at the center, with dismembered arms and legs surrounding it, twisted to look like flower petals, or a manji cross.

I'm starting to get used to this. I gulp, and I realize my throat is dry. Is it tension, or arousal, I wonder? My thirst burns my throat, but it doesn't matter. This place is pregnant with death, and I smile wordlessly in spite of myself. The thirst turns into screaming ecstasy inside of me, the pleasure almost too overwhelming, but I manage to hold it back. I gaze upon the beautiful corpse once more, and feel for once that I am truly alive.

* * *

><p>／3<p>

At the beginning of each month, it is customary in the Ryōgi dynasty for the head of the family and the heir to have a sword duel with live steel. In the past, different swordmasters would be invited to participate in the duel, and to teach their craft. But then, tiring of such acts, one of my ancestors stopped this practice long ago, and created within the manor his own school of swordsmanship. Into such a tradition was I born, and even a girl of the Ryōgi dynasty must bear a certain standard with the sword.

My father was a strong man, and skillful with his weapon. In our duel, he made the sword dance like no other, and easily overpowered me. It is this disparity in skill and strength that has just made me lose the duel. After this, I waste no time in returning to the main building of the manor, which lies a fair bit of distance away from the dōjo. The wooden floor of the compound is immaculately treated, and makes no sound as my feet tread upon it.

On the way, I see Akitaka standing in a corridor waiting for me. Ten years my senior, Akitaka is the servant assigned to me by the household since my childhood days. He is a dutiful and patient man, especially with me. He's probably waiting on me so he can change me out of my sweat-soaked clothes.

"You fought a close duel today. How is your father?"

"Goddamit, Akitaka, stop shadowing me all the time. I can at least change by myself. It's not like we're joined at the hip. You'd be better served sucking up to my brother, you know that? Males succeed the dynasty, after all."

Despite my rudeness, Akitaka smiles. "You are quite wrong, my lady. There is no successor to the dynasty but you, for you are the only one that inherited the gift."

The statement elicits a small chuckle from me. "A gift, is it? What I have, Akitaka, is a curse."

Leaving Akitaka in the corridor, I continue to head toward the main building. Once I reach my room, I instinctively lock the door shut and immediately undress my training garments. I steal a glance of myself in the mirror, at the body of a sixteen year old girl. Actually, I only need to put in a little effort to make my face look like a guy, but I can't cheat that way with the rest of my body. The body that continues to grow, month after month, year after year…the body that **Shiki** detests more and more with each passing day.

"It might have been better for me to be a guy," I say to no one in particular. No one is listening, except for me. Except for him. The one inside me called **Shiki**.

All descendants of our clan are given two different names, two different logograms, though with the same pronunciation. There is the masculine name, which belongs to yang, the positive. And then the feminine name, which belongs to yin, the negative. As I was born a girl, I am _Shiki_. Had I been a boy, I would have been named **Shiki**. The reason we undertake such a peculiar practice is simple to understand. The descendants of the Ryōgi dynasty have a high chance of inheriting dissociative identity disorder, what most people would know as a split personality…in other words, someone like me.

My father once said that ours was a dynasty blessed, a state of grace that only few know. He also said it was a curse. He got the "curse" part right, at least. This isn't a state of grace by any stretch of the imagination. It is, quite simply, an abnormality. Fortunately, I'm the first in a long time to successfully inherit the curse. Unfortunately, that only means that a lot of my relatives ended up in asylums before they were even old enough to understand what that meant. Having two personalities breaks most people eventually. The difference between dream and consciousness, the boundary between your memory and the other's becomes blurred, and one so afflicted soon turns to suicide. But I was different. I didn't become insane like the others…and so I was trained by the family.

I like to think it's because me and **Shiki** ignore each other. To me, **Shiki** is just another personality, one I switch to when I need it, and we exist simultaneously, aware of each other. In the duel between me and my father, I needed his aggressiveness, so I used him. But I am in control. Altogether, it's a bit different from what people usually call a split personality. I am _Shiki_, but at the same time, I am also **Shiki**.

Father was proud, proud to have actually spawned a proper heir to the dynasty in his generation. My older brother was cast aside in the line of succession, and I took his place. And really, I'm fine with that. I don't bite the hand that feeds me. And I don't mind living this poor excuse for a normal life. Not like I have any choice in the matter. Even if, say, **Shiki** turns into a cold-blooded killer, I can't make him go away. There will always be something called "Shiki" inside of me, and in the end, both of us are the same. No more and no less.

* * *

><p>The First Homicide Inquiry／ 1<p>

"So it's true then? You and the Ryōgi girl have hooked up?"

I almost turn the coffee milk in my mouth into a projectile at what Gakuto just said. I go into a coughing fit after almost choking on the damn thing, but it does give me a scant few seconds to scan the classroom for anyone who heard that. Everyone seems to be busy minding their own lunchtime business.

"What do you mean?" I finally manage to say after gulping down my drink.

"Don't be playin' dumb with me." Gakuto's face looks like he wants to shift the blame away from himself. "It ain't no secret that you've been eyeing Ryōgi. Matter of fact, judging from the reaction you just made, seems the only ones who ain't wise to it are the both of you."

I can't see myself so I can't really say, but I think I might inadvertently be making the most disappointed frown I've ever made in my life.

The increasingly frigid winds and rapidly decreasing temperature signal November and the advent of winter, meaning that it's been seven months since I first met _Shiki_. The time and our tendency to hang out together must have given people the wrong impression.

"I'm sorry to say that you have been misinformed," I finally say. "We're just friends, if you could even call it that."

"That a fact?" His continued disbelief exasperates me. That Gakuto's parents stuck him with a name meaning "man of learning" is the textbook definition of irony. It goes against his thick-headedness and his entire tendency to gravitate towards sports and less towards academically inclined pursuits. His status as the pride of the jūdō team attested to that more than anything. Despite our seeming incompatibility, we've struck a friendship that started way back in grade school that somehow sticks to this day. "You're on a first name basis, though," he continues. "She don't seem like the kind of broad to just let that go without a warning."

"_Shiki_ really hates being called by her last name, though. I called her 'Ryōgi' one time just to see what happened, and she gave me a look as if I just killed her pet dog or something. She insisted that I not be formal with her, so I ended up just calling her by her first name. Pretty boring, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess so," he finally concedes after a sigh and a five second delay. He looks really disappointed, leaving me to wonder what kind of crazy story he was expecting. "Then your rendezvous last week at the school entrance wasn't a thing, either? This is a waste of time man, talking to you expecting details. Shoulda just shut up and ate my lunch back in the classroom."

"Wait, back it up. How the hell do you know about last week?"

"I told you, boy, you and Ryōgi are famous. Mostly because of Ryōgi, but whatever. Your rainy day get-together was this morning's hallway talk. Since it's about Ryōgi, every mouth in this damn school been talking."

I let out a frustrated sigh and cast a gloomy look at the sky, silently praying that this mess doesn't reach _Shiki_'s ears. She'd kill me.

"They say this school has a lot of college entrants that turn out well, don't they? I'm starting to wonder if people here really are that smart," I blurt out half-jokingly.

"Well, if it's any consolation, at least some of the upperclassmen got work out of this here school," he replies matter-of-factly. I'm about to make another joke at the expense of the school's administration and curriculum when Gakuto chimes in again. "Seriously, though, there's one thing that don't sit right with me: of all the fine girls in this school, why Ryōgi? Whichever way you wanna spin it, it just don't seem at all like you."

I recall being told something similar by one of my friends in the higher year level. I was told a more down-to-earth girl would suit me more, with the not-so-subtle hint that Shiki was altogether too strange. The words are different but I recognize the same sort of subtle insinuation in what Gakuto just said, and it makes me a little angry.

"Oh, come off it. _Shiki_ isn't as scary as you make her out to be," I say inadvertently. Gakuto suddenly makes a huge, stupid grin, as if finally claiming some elusive prize.

"'Just a friend,' huh? Easy, man, no need to raise your voice at me. Just curious, is all. Scary chicks like that don't come a dime a dozen, you feel me? You not seeing how cold she is just means you already crazy for her."

He must mean "hard-headed and obstinate" when he says "cold", because that's the only way I'd describe _Shiki_. I know Gakuto's right, so only with reluctance do I finally concede.

"I know, alright? Okay, you got me, Christ."

"Then what part of her do you like? Her looks? What?" I have no idea what's motivating him and his drive to ask every single detailed question. Well, it's clear that _Shiki_ is good looking, no doubt about it. But that's not what really draws me to her. _Shiki_ always looks like she's hiding some invisible wound, some fragile part of her that's on the verge of breaking and eating her from the inside out, killing her slowly. You see the emptiness in her face, her thousand-yard stare, and you realize it isn't just some convenient metaphor; it's real, somehow, and she needs help. I don't want to see her get hurt.

"Well, she does have her cute sides," I venture hesitantly. "If I were to compare her to an animal, she'd be a rabbit I guess." As soon as I say that, I regret it immediately. It's a big hit with Gakuto, however, who laughs heartily upon hearing it almost reflexively.

"A rabbit? Man, that ain't even half right and you know it. If she were an animal, she'd be a hawk that can claw the shit outta your eyes, or some shit like that. A rabbit is just…" he tries to find his words amid bouts of laughter. "…just too far off the scale. Or wait, wait. Maybe she's the kind of bird that dies from loneliness?" Another huge laugh.

"That's it. I'm not talking to you about girls anymore."

All of a sudden, Gakuto's laughter stops. "Know what? A rabbit might've been a good comparison after all."

Now it is my turn to laugh, though I manage to suppress the urge. "Gakuto, an about-face that quick is pretty suspicious, don't you think?"

"Nah, nah, it ain't about that. I just remembered that there're rabbits that can bite your head off if you're not careful, man."

After thinking on it perhaps a moment longer than I should have, I respond. "Bullshit."

"Boy, of course it's bullshit," Gakuto says, stretching his arms and leaning back on his seat. "I'm talking 'bout video games, man."

* * *

><p>The First Homicide Inquiry／ 2<p>

On the day the finals for the second quarter ended, I saw a very unusual thing.

Inside my desk was a letter, which automatically makes it a bit weird, but it didn't end there. It was the content of the letter and its sender that surprised me. It was _Shiki_ brazenly asking me out on a date. The letter said something simple like "take me out on a date, will ya?", but something about it was vaguely threatening, almost like an ultimatum.

I came home that day, not knowing what to make of what I just read. I waited for the next day to come, with all the dread of a samurai who had just been ordered to commit seppuku the first thing in the morning.

[][][][][][][][][][]

I've been waiting for what must have been an hour in the place _Shiki_ designated: the statue of the dog Hachikō in front of the train station, when I finally see her walking towards me from quite a bit away. The first thing I notice is that she's wearing a different colored kimono today, the color of autumn leaves. It actually goes well with her bright red jacket. Though I see _Shiki_ almost every day, I've never really noticed how small she is, looking at her from this distance. The walk that animates her makes her features look distant and cold, and yet she carries herself with dignity and grace; a contradiction not unlike the one you would find on a puppet, a puppet almost alive in its appearance, and yet ultimately dead.

"Yo, Kokutō. Been waiting long? My bad, man. Losing Akitaka was a pain in the ass."

The second thing I notice is that she pronounces my name weird, and I get the feeling she's referencing some long-dead French poet with it. And that's not even going into the way she's talking now. It leaves me stunned for a second, and I look at her a bit too long, as if to confirm whether it really is _Shiki_ or some sort of elaborate but dumb prank by Gakuto.

"What, being an hour late is a cardinal sin now?" _Shiki_ says. She must have noticed my mouth now hanging half-open. "Unclenching your ass some would do you wonders, my friend." _Shiki_'s black eyes stare at me weirdly. The same eyes that always looked like they were staring at something far off, even during the first time we met on that snowy day.

"Um, I—I just wanna check," I stutter, laughing in my head as I do so. "You're _Shiki_, right?"

She raises an eyebrow at me. "You were expecting maybe the school principal?" _Shiki_ laughs, leaving a suspended grin on her face afterwards. "Well, time's a-wastin'. I'm not good at this, so I'm gonna have to leave it to you where we go."

She then grabs my arm in a solid grip and starts to walk. Making a mockery of her final statement, she strings me along by the arm across a variety of specialty stores, never really buying anything, but moving on to a new shop after she gets bored. I try reasoning with her, see if she wanted to go to a movie or a coffee shop to take a breather, but she parries with an immediate and resounding "No." She's probably right, anyway. Going to such boring places wouldn't fit _Shiki_'s character now.

She talked. A lot. Quite a contrast to the usually quiet _Shiki_ I knew. It's like she's high or something. Most of the stores we visit are clothing stores. Given the state she's in right now, it made me breathe a sigh of relief that she's still going to women's clothing stores. Finally, after four hours of keeping up with _Shiki_, she says she wants to eat, and so after much wandering, she decides on a fast food store.

The second we go inside the restaurant _Shiki_ attracts attention with her ridiculously out of place kimono, but she doesn't seem to mind. As she places her jacket on her seat and sits down, I decide to ask her the obvious.

"So, is this the way you normally talk out of school, _Shiki_?"

"Only in my case," she says in between furious chewing of hamburger chunks. It looks like she doesn't like it. "But really, how you talk means absolutely nothing. I mean, you could change how you talk right now and you'd still be the same guy, right?" _Shiki_ finishes the hamburger in seconds. "I'm sure I've got you absolutely confused right about now."

She has no idea.

"I guess I have some explaining to do. This is the first time you've seen me after all. I've been quiet until now because me and _Shiki_ were on the same wavelength on this one."

The words are going in, but I don't understand what she's saying at all.

"It's what you would call a split personality. I'm **Shiki**, and the one you usually see is _Shiki_. But don't get me wrong, we're not like different people or anything. _Shiki_ Ryōgi has always been one person. The only difference between us is our priorities."

While she says this, she puts a wet finger to a paper napkin, writing her two names, with two differing characters but the same pronunciation. One **Shiki** that means "weave". Another _Shiki_ that means "ritual".

"I just wanted to give you a friendly neighborhood chat, is all. _Shiki_ wasn't keen on the idea, so I took over in her place. You get me?"

"I…suppose so," I answer uneasily. The truth is that I really do sort of get it, when I think about the time we met at the school orientation. We'd met before that, but when we talked at the orientation, she said she didn't know anything about it. I thought it was because she hated me or some other similar reason, but I guess now I can kind of understand.

Being with her for half the day, I come to understand there really isn't so big a difference between today's **Shiki** and the _Shiki_ I supposedly know. Like she says, she talks differently, but the way she moves is the same. So much the same, in fact, that doubting the veracity of what she says seems now a foolish notion.

"But why tell me?" I say.

"Figured it's only a matter of time before you knew." She takes a sip from her juice but immediately puts it down. She doesn't really like cold things.

"I'm what you would call _Shiki_'s destructive impulse. I represent the things she wants to do the most. But until now there's no one I could direct this impulse at. _Shiki_ had no real interest in anyone." She mentions this with disinterest and just a tinge of regret, as if dreading the fact that she had to say it at all. She keeps looking at me seriously, and I'm afraid of what she'll do should I move.

"You can relax, man. I'm still myself, and I'm just being a mouthpiece for what _Shiki_ thinks right now. I'm not gonna go Charles Whitman on you." There is a pause for a moment, as her face grows more stern, as if to presage the saying of something important. "Though…we are beginning to be out of sync, so I'd take myself with just a little grain of salt, if I were you."

"'Out of sync?' Does that mean you and _Shiki_ got in a fight?"

"I like how you think someone can have a fight with himself. But no, not like that. See, whatever I do, it has to be something we both want. _Shiki_'s at the helm here, so meeting you was a mutual decision. She probably would have gone about it entirely different, though. It's not really in her to just go out and take you on a date. You can thank me for that one." I nod without really thinking, focusing more on what she's saying, partly because it's interesting, and partly because I can't take in half of what she's saying. **Shiki** laughs. "See, I like that about you. _Shiki_ thinks otherwise. That's what I mean when I say out of sync."

The way she worded it, I don't know if _Shiki_ doesn't like that I don't give it much thought, or if _Shiki_ doesn't like that **Shiki** likes me. I'd like to believe it's the latter though, for the sake of my pride at the very least. Quite abruptly, **Shiki** stands up, and puts the money for the food she ate on the table.

"Well, guess that's about it. Let's call it a day."

Putting her jacket on, she makes her way to the door with a happy skip in her walk, leaving with only one thing to say:

"You're all right, man. I like you, so we'll see each other real soon."

[][][][][][][][][][]

After parting with **Shiki**, I start to make my way home. Once I reach the street, I'm surprised to see the city being bathed with the warm glow of sunset. Though it's still a relatively early time, there's a lot less people in the main road than usual thanks to the recent murders.

I must be tired after talking (not to mention window shopping) with **Shiki** for that long, so I make my way inside my house with only a cursory greeting to my parents. I was planning to inhabit the kotatsu for a good warm nap, only to find my cousin Daisuke, a frequent visitor and a good friend, had already usurped the table. Wordlessly, we initiate a battle for the warm table, struggling with our legs to gain the most ground. In the end, however, I am no match for him, and while he lies down, half his body being warmed by the kotatsu, I end up having to stand up.

"You must be busy these days, Daisuke," I say while eating some of the oranges on top of the table, resignation clear in my voice.

"Yeah, real busy, what with five murders in three months. Sorry for crashing in your house like this. Figured your dad's house was closer to the police station, and I only get one hour of R&R before I need to get back, so going home would have been a waste of time."

My cousin Daisuke is a homicide detective in the city police, an irony since he's "kind of a lazy guy." His words, not mine. Why the department would put a man so unfit for the position of solving crime is a mystery not even he can solve. He's my go-to source for all of the crime related stuff that happens, a convenience that seems to be proving its worth with every passing day.

"How's the search going?" I ask.

"Baby steps. We were pretty hard up for leads, but in this fifth vic, the suspect finally threw us a bone, even if it does seem intentional." Daisuke sits up and faces me, a grim look on his worn out and sleep-deprived face. "What I'm about to tell you is confidential, Mikiya. You're not entirely unrelated to this, so listen up. I told you about the first vic, right?"

Daisuke then proceeds to describe the situation with the second and third victims. While hoping that not all policemen in the country are this loose-tongued, I listen to his story. The second victim was vertically sliced in half from the crotch to the head. Murder weapon unknown. One of the halves was stuck to the wall.

The third victim had his limbs cut off, and the arms sewn to the legs. The fourth was cut into pieces, with what looked like a symbol or some other marking left on the body. The fifth was arranged such that the arms and legs formed a manji symbol.

"Obviously someone with some sort of mental disorder," I say, trying to hold back the growing sickness in my stomach.

"Too obvious, though. This guy has some sort of point to make here. What do you think?"

"Hmm. I don't think there's any meaning in them all being killed by a cutting weapon. Other than that, I don't know. But…"

"But?"

"He's getting used to it. All the victims until now have been outside. The next one might be a break and enter job."

Daisuke puts a hand on his temple. I really do pity the stress this job, and heck, this case is giving him. I know he's barely had any time to himself. "There's no motive, no pattern," he observes. "And he might try going inside houses next if he doesn't find anyone outside to kill. I hope the brass gets the same read on this guy and have some sort of plan for it. Probably not, though."

He closes his eyes, right hand still resting on his head, nursing an invisible wound. "As for why I told you all of this…we found this in the fifth crime scene. Suspect probably dropped it." He produces a small plastic bag from his pocket; the kind used to preserve evidence, and inside is our school emblem. We have to stick it somewhere in our clothes when we go to school.

"The area had a lot of vegetation, so the suspect might not have noticed that he dropped this. Or it could have been intentional, some sort of message. I don't know. But it's the only lead I got. I might be paying your school a visit in a few days," Daisuke says, almost like a premonition for an ill omen.

* * *

><p>The First Homicide Inquiry／ 3<p>

Before anyone could grow comfortable or complacent with it, winter vacation ends. The only special thing that happened during that time was that I made the customary visit to the shrine on New Year's with _Shiki_, but other than that, there was nothing else of note.

As the third term starts, _Shiki_ starts to isolate herself even more. Even I could tell she was trying to stay away from other people as much as possible. After school, she likes to look out the window when everyone else has left, but it would always be **Shiki** that waits, just like today. I keep her company, even though she hasn't said that she wants me to. She needs it, I think.

The winter evenings come earlier, and the sunset that heralds it bathes the classroom in a deep red light. The bright light makes the shadows that play across the classroom's walls even darker, and **Shiki**'s shadow is no exception. She leans against the window before she begins to talk.

"Say, Kokutō. Did I ever tell you that I hate people?"

"Not really." I reply with the tone that implies skepticism at where this topic is going.

"Well, congratulations, now you know. _Shiki_ a misanthrope, been one since she was a kid. See, when you're a kid, you don't know nothing yet, right? You think every random Joe you meet on the street loves ya, just like that. I mean, you love yourself, so it's common sense that they must like you too, right?"

"I suppose. When you're a kid, you still trust everyone. When you're a kid, you're scared of ghosts. When you grow up, you get scared of other people."

"Right. But that ignorance is what's really important, Kokutō. It never occurs to you that your best friend could be a murderer, or that your neighbor could be killing puppies in his spare time. You don't suspect. And since you don't know anything, other people will accept you. And no matter how fake that is, it's important, since you'll be able to love other people too. People can only express the emotions they know, after all."

The sunset paints her face red, and her eyes acquire that peculiar gaze of hers, reminiscent of the kind of casual, perhaps feigned disdain of a predator hiding its intentions from its prey. Right now, I can't tell which **Shiki** she currently is. Maybe it doesn't even matter.

"But it was different for me. Since the day I was born, _Shiki_ had me inside of her, so she already knew of other people. I didn't love her, and so she learned that it was possible for people not to love. Ever since she was a kid, she learned how ugly people can be on the inside, and so she couldn't love other people. In time, that tempered to rejection, and then disinterest."

And that's how I grew to dislike people, her eyes seemed to conclude. "But weren't you lonely like that?" I muse.

"Why would I be? _Shiki_ has me, doesn't she? She was isolated from society, sure, but alone? Never." She tries her best to look like she really means it. "But lately," she continues, "_Shiki_ has been acting kinda weird. She's been trying harder and harder to deny her abnormality. Denial is what I do. She's only supposed to affirm." **Shiki** laughs bitterly at their private joke, her sinister smile betraying the brutality beneath.

"Kokutō, have you ever wanted to kill someone?"

At that moment, the sun shone in a peculiar way, making her face take on a deep, crimson, almost blood-stained look, and it made my heart jump.

"Not really, no. Probably the furthest I've ever thought in that vein is wanting to punch someone."

"I see. But for me, that desire is all I have," she declares, as her voice echoes across the empty classroom, now lit by a burning red sun.

"What do you mean?"

"All the things that _Shiki_ really wants to do, all the things she holds back, I welcome with open arms. It's my sole meaning and purpose, and it doesn't make me unhappy at all to know that. And that's why _Shiki_ has always tried to suppress me. She always tries to kill the black stain in her that's called **Shiki**. I've killed myself, over and over and over again. I told you, right? 'People can only express the emotions they know?' Well, the only emotion I've ever experienced…is murder."

She finally stands up from the windowsill, and without making so much as a sound, draws closer to me, and in that moment, I feel fear, genuine fear, in my heart.

"And that's why, Kokutō, _Shiki_'s definition of murder," she pauses and leans close to my ear, her murmur as audible as a shout, "is killing me. She kills anything that makes me want to come out."

And with her prankster smile grimly signaling the end of the conversation, **Shiki** leaves the classroom.

[][][][][][][][][][]

The day after, I try to pretend as if nothing happened. I go about the motions as usual, and of course this includes inviting _Shiki_ to eat lunch together.

"Wanna grab a bite with me?"

"What…in the…" Her face betrays surprise, a face I've yet to see her put on until now, and yet with her voice wavering, she reluctantly accepts, perhaps to preserve routine more than anything.

_Shiki_ always liked going to the roof, and so we head there. We climb the stairs, with _Shiki_ choosing to remain silent, but I knew her pointed stare of surprise and anger is boring a hole in my back. I know the reason why she's mad. Even I could read between the lines of what **Shiki** said yesterday. But it's not like she hasn't unconsciously been sending signals for me to back off, and I just take it as business as usual.

When I open the door to the roof, we find that we're all alone. It seems that we're the only ones that want to eat lunch under the cold late-January sky.

"Man, it's cold," I say. "Wanna go somewhere else?"

"I'm alright. If you want to eat somewhere else, however, then you are welcome to do so."

As always, her sarcasm-drenched politeness doesn't really bother me. We sit beside the wall to avoid the chill of the wind, with me already having finished two sandwiches. _Shiki_ hasn't even touched hers.

"Why are you even talking to me?" _Shiki_ murmured something almost inaudible even in this deserted rooftop, and it was so sudden I wasn't able to hear it clearly.

"You said something, _Shiki_?"

"I said, why are you so thoughtless?" she says while fixing me with the same angry glare she had on earlier.

"Oh, come on. I've been called 'honest to a fault' many times before, but never 'thoughtless.'"

"Then everyone's been going easy on you," she says, sounding convinced. _Shiki_ finally breaks open the wrapping on her egg sandwich; the sound of the crunching plastic seal echoed in the empty rooftop. The noise was fitting somehow. _Shiki_ sits silently now while eating her sandwich in small, deliberate chunks, and as I'm already done, I'm just sort of idling. I can practically feel the wave of angered expectation she's generating, so I try to break it by starting the conversation that had been in the air since I asked her to eat lunch with me.

"_Shiki,_ I'm sure you're a little mad at me…"

"A little?"

Her eyes stare needle point daggers at me. It's what I get for just saying what comes to mind, but this subject needed to be broached sooner or later anyway.

"God, you're annoying," _Shiki _sighs. "I have no idea why you still choose to associate yourself with me after all that I've shown you and all that **Shiki** said to you yesterday."

"I don't know why either," I shrug lightly. "Being with you is kinda fun, but if you asked me why, I wouldn't know what to say."

"Kokutō, you do understand that I'm abnormal, right?"

There's nothing I can do but nod. Her split personality (or whatever it is) obviously makes her some variety of odd. "Of course I do."

"Then why aren't you getting it? I'm not someone you can just walk up to everyday and expect to hang out normally with."

"Does it really matter if you're normal or not?"

That statement made for _Shiki_'s second surprised face of the day. She looks at me straight and unmoving, so much that I thought that she might have even stopped breathing.

"But…I can't be anything like you," _Shiki_ says. She brushes a hand on her hair, making the sleeve of her kimono slide down to reveal a bandage wrapped around her slender right arm, just around the elbow. It looks like it's only been recently applied.

"_Shiki,_ that wound-"

Abruptly, _Shiki_ stands up before I can finish my sentence. She avoids looking at me, deliberately staring at some far off place.

"If **Shiki**'s words aren't getting through to you, then allow me to elucidate on them," she says. "If this goes on, I will kill you."

Now it was my turn to be surprised. I could muster no reply. Without even throwing away the plastic wrapping of her egg sandwich, _Shiki_ leaves the roof and returns to the classroom. Left alone, I clean up the trash we both left behind.

"Now I've really done it. It's just like Gakuto said." It was all I could end up saying to myself. Because just like Gakuto said, I might really be an idiot. I couldn't bring myself to hate _Shiki_, even after what she said. In fact, I think my mind just cleared up on the matter. At this point, there's only one reason why I like being with _Shiki_.

"I've become crazy a long time ago." If only I had realized it sooner.

If only I had realized that I like _Shiki_ Ryōgi so much, that I can laugh at being told about my eventual murder.

* * *

><p>The First Homicide Inquiry／ 4<p>

I wake up to a perfectly good Sunday morning, the first Sunday of February in fact. After washing my face and brushing my teeth, I head to the dining room, and am surprised to find Daisuke there, waiting for me.

"Why are you here?" I ask, in the manner of my usual morning crankiness.

"Well, good morning to you, too. I missed the last train, so I came over for a while. I gotta go to work in a while, though. Savor school life while you've got it, Mikiya. When you grow up, working harder just translates to less vacations." A yawn punctuates the last word in his sentence. His drooping shoulders and tired voice tell me just how much sleep he's been getting. That only means two things: the investigation on the serial killer has either ground to a solid halt or they've gotten a new lead.

"Oh yeah, you were talking about coming to my school last time we talked. Did anything come of that?"

"Nothing, really. Lots of people lose school emblems, after all, and testing it turned up nothing on the offender database. But it might be back to your school for me." He sighs, rubbing his eyes. "Truth is, a sixth body turned up three days ago. Signs of a struggle this time, which was different. The victim had long nails, and she probably clawed at her killer. Found about three centimeters of skin beneath the vic's nails."

Now this was surprising. I haven't even heard about this on the TV or the papers. Yet, even in the face of such grim news, my mind couldn't help but drift off to _Shiki_ and the conversation we had recently. She'd been talking about murder as well. A picture forms in my mind, of _Shiki_ standing atop a bloody corpse, holding a knife…

"So that means the killer was wounded?" I blurt out.

"Um, yeah? Unless the victim was scratching her own damn self. Lab team thinks the skin is from the elbow, so I'd expect the killer's nursing some pretty deep wounds thereabouts. The blood is being analyzed, and if it gets a match on the database, it's checkmate."

Daisuke stands up after that, says a quick goodbye, and leaves. I suddenly find myself without the power to stand up, and I collapse on one of the chairs. It was only three days ago when I talked with **Shiki** in the sunset-lit classroom, and the day after that, I could've sworn there was a fresh bandage on her elbow.

[][][][][][][][][][]

Past noon, I make up my mind. Just thinking and worrying about it isn't going to do any good, so I figure if I ask _Shiki_ herself, and she tells me she has nothing to do with the killings, then that'll be enough. At the very least, it'll do something to calm my nerves.

I rifle through my school's student registry book, and find _Shiki_'s name and home address a few moments later. Her house is on the outskirts of town, and when I finally find it, the better part of the night had caught up with me. The Ryōgi estate's periphery is populated by bamboo trees in every direction, a veritable forest, and the estate itself is built like an old 18th century mansion. The walls surrounding the grounds went on for so long, I don't think I could have guessed the size of the place just by walking. I would've needed an airplane to get a better picture.

A path leads me through the bamboo forest to a large gate. The entire thing looks like a relic left over from the Edo era, but despite this, I find an intercom beside the gate, a little anachronistic quality that gives me some small relief. I push the button and state my business, and in under a minute, a black-suited man opens the gates and comes out to greet me. He looks like he's in his early thirties, and seems about as high-spirited as a ghost would be.

"Welcome, young man." he says with impeccably practiced politeness. "My name is Akitaka, a servant of the Ryōgi household and of the lady _Shiki_. Unfortunately, the lady is absent now and cannot meet you. If you would like, you may enter the mansion and await her return."

"Er…no, thanks. I think I'll just come back another time."

Truth is, I don't think I have the courage to go inside the mansion alone.

"As you wish. Goodbye, then."

He goes inside the gates again, and it closes behind him with a sound of finality. Because it's already dark, I decide to go home for today. I keep thinking about _Shiki_, and what she could be doing at such a late hour. I decide not to assume the worst. It's the easiest way to a slippery slope of crippling anxiety.

The walk to the station takes me an hour, but right at the station entrance I meet my former upperclassman. He invites me to dinner in a restaurant, and, not being one to refuse, I go with him. We end up talking until the hour hand of my watch is pointed at ten o' clock. Unlike my friend, I'm still a student, so I needed to get going soon. After saying goodbye to him, I buy a ticket for the train inside the station. The hour hand of my watch is creeping closer and closer to 11, but before I put the ticket on the turnstile, I allow myself to wonder, for a moment, if _Shiki_ was home already.

"God, what the hell am I doing here?" I say to myself, while walking through the unfamiliar residential neighborhood. The streets are empty with no signs of life, unsurprising given the hour and the circumstances, but I tried to pay it no heed; _Shiki_'s house was nearby. I know I won't be able to meet her now even if I went there. But still, I just want to see the lights on in her house, in her room, just to know that she's there, so I'm taking this short side trip back to the Ryōgi estate.

The freezing winter air puts a strain on my shoulder muscles, and my ragged breath is keenly audible in the still night. Soon, the residential district is behind me and I face the tree line of the bamboo forest surrounding the Ryōgi estate for the second time tonight. The trees part for the little path that goes towards the front gate. No wind sings through the trees at this hour, and no light but the moon's illuminates the path; far from making the forest less menacing, the silence only serves to accentuate my anxiety.

I wonder what would happen if I got attacked here. As soon as the thought enters my mind, I regret it immediately. Though I was only half-joking with myself, my brain is now working overtime to exaggerate the fleeting image, even as I try to put it out of my mind. When I was little, I was afraid of monsters. I mistook the silhouettes flitting to and fro in the midst of the bamboo trees for ghosts and other horrors. But now, I'm scared of other people, people who you imagine will just jump out from behind the brush and attack you. What age was I when I started to replace the ghosts with people?

Every step I take worsens the thought in my head, and I keep remembering the terrible image I saw when Daisuke told me about the recent murder. And while I try to exorcise that disturbing thought, I come across something in the path that makes my feet stop of their own volition.

A few meters ahead, a white shadow of a person was standing. Her kimono is so white it seemed as if to shine in the moonlight, but it is speckled and sullied with something, and it continues to spread over the kimono's surface. Something in front of her is spraying red liquid in all directions. Venturing forward a few steps, it becomes clear that the woman is _Shiki_. As for the object which I first took for some sort of fountain?

A corpse, its form too mangled and bloody to identify at first sight. Somehow, I'm neither shocked nor surprised. Perhaps it's because the same terrible premonition lingered in my thoughts just moments before, and in an instant, it turned into reality. Now my mind is blank.

The body is fresh, otherwise it wouldn't bleed profusely like that. The fatal wound starts at the neck, and continues down at an angle towards the body in a single, clean cut, like some macabre stole.

_Shiki_ stares at the body, standing still like a statue.

The rich, red color of the spraying blood is enough to make me faint, but the organs seeping forth from the gaping wound makes the body look less like a human and more like a twisted facsimile of one made by someone mad. It repels and disgusts me so much that it's hard to look at.

Yet _Shiki_ only continues to stare, unperturbed and placid.

Red butterflies take flight from the wound, and descend lightly on _Shiki_'s face, and on her ghostly kimono. Her blood-soaked lips twist into a shape...

is it of fear, or of pleasure? Is she _Shiki_ or **Shiki**? I try to say something, but my voice stops, and I fall to the ground just because of the effort of trying to talk.

I vomit, my stomach retching out all its contents, all the bile. I wish it retched out this memory as well, but no such luck. I vomit so hard I start to cry. But that doesn't make me feel any more relieved. The overwhelming smell of the blood is so rich it drowns my brain. And finally, _Shiki_ notices me. She turns her head to look at me, and I see now that the twist on her lips earlier was a smile, a kind of warm, motherly smile that is so at odds with the scene that it makes me shiver.

I can feel my consciousness start to leave me as she walks closer to me. Before I faint, she utters something at me.

"Do be careful, Kokutō. A terrible premonition echoes a terrible reality."

I guess I was too optimistic. I refused to even think about this outcome until I was face to face with it.

* * *

><p>The First Homicide Inquiry／ 5<p>

I heard they found me lying on the ground near a puddle of my own vomit, awake but lying there dumbfounded. A patrolman spotted me and took me to a nearby station, where I was taken into questioning. Unfortunately, I was in a state of shock for about four hours, and they couldn't get anything out of me. I guess my brain isn't really prepared for that sort of thing. I don't know if anybody is. The time it took from the interview to them releasing me made it so that I couldn't make it to school anymore, so I decided to take a break today.

While the corpse was spreading blood profusely all over the place, I was lucky enough to be far away and so didn't have any blood spatter on me, so that (and the fact that I'm Daisuke's cousin) sped up the processing quite a bit. Right now, Daisuke is giving me a ride back home.

"So, you really didn't see anyone, Mikiya?"

"I said I didn't. What's it gonna take for you to believe me, huh?" I find myself surprised at the annoyed tone I take, but Daisuke just seems to take it in stride.

"Alright, alright, I believe you. Fuck. I guess I should just be happy you're alive; the killer wouldn't have let you live if you'd seen anything. But god-dammit. This case is still a stone-fucking-whodunit."

"It's a career case if you solve it, though."

How sick am I, joking around with Daisuke like this? A voice in my head keeps whispering, _liar, liar_, and yet here I am lying with a straight face to a police detective who'd probably waste no second throwing me behind bars if he found out I was withholding information. Yet still, I didn't say anything about _Shiki_ being in the scene of the crime.

"So, Mikiya, how was your first body?"

"Well, spilled my guts out, didn't I? I never want to see another one again if I can help it."

Daisuke gives a small chuckle and says "Yeah, I had that feeling too, first time around. Not every body that gets dumped in this city is like that, though, so you can rest easy." Oh. Well, sure, Daisuke, I'll rest easy on the fact that at least not all dead bodies you get are horribly mutilated.

"But I didn't know you were a friend of the Ryōgi girl, Mikiya. Small world."

The knowledge of me befriending _Shiki_ makes him smile for some unknown reason, which makes me just a little bit more nervous. On record, they chalked this recent incident up to the same killer as all the others, and they took my statement that I was there on the night of February 3rd only after the murder had happened and the suspect had taken off. Both the Ryōgi family and myself have said nothing about _Shiki_, even though they must know that I know by now.

"So did you investigate the family or something?" I ask Daisuke.

"Hey, I wanted to, seeing as the daughter, _Shiki_, goes to your school, but they didn't want to for some reason, and I can't go knocking down their door when I don't have a charge against them. Not that that makes them automatically suspicious or anything, but the only thing they said to me was 'what happens outside of our grounds is none of our business.' Bunch of stuck up fools if you ask me."

Strange. This combined with the fact that they stopped the investigation just outside the grounds of the Ryōgi family and didn't even try to ask going in makes me think the Ryōgis have some sort of suction on the force.

"You ask me, though, I don't really think they had anything to do with it," Daisuke says suddenly.

"Huh? Why?"

Even though I make light of him most of the time, the truth is, I have faith in Daisuke's detective skills. He's cracked some tough nuts in the past, and it's undoubtedly made him a valuable asset to the homicide division, despite his lack of reluctance in sharing police information with his all too curious cousin. I thought for sure he'd be at least a little suspicious about _Shiki_.

"I just can't see why any one of them would want to suddenly kill people. There's no motive, at least not one I can see." Then his eyes lose their look of contemplation, and he smiles at me. "Besides, you don't see a girl like their daughter killing anybody, right? Too much of a looker for that to happen."

I sigh, and think fruitlessly at why such a carefree man is in such a grim occupation. "And that's why you'll be single for the rest of your life," I reply.

"Say any more and I'll exercise my ability to lock you up for 24 hours without probable cause."

We don't talk for the rest of the ride, but I do agree with Daisuke, even without his "amazing" powers of intuition. I mean, strictly speaking, I didn't really see _Shiki_ do anything, and I'm sticking to that one fact, even if she herself tells me otherwise.

Now I have something I need to do.

[][][][][][][][][][]

In retrospect, that was the last time for a long time that a murder like that happened. The elusive form and shape of the serial killer would not begin to become much clearer until three years later, and yet it all seems like a world apart to me now. But that was the first and last time that _Shiki_ would ever face me with a look as frightening as she had that night.

The First Homicide Inquiry・Fin

* * *

><p>／4<p>

Just outside the grounds of our manor, in the stone path that led to the house, a murder took place.

My stroll on that night was a scattered recollection of waking moments and seemingly blank unconsciousness, a trend that has started only recently, but connecting the moments I do remember seems to lead me to the obvious conclusion as to what I did.

The disfigured corpse sprayed blood in every direction, and the very sight of the crimson liquid made my head spin and my knees weak. **Shiki** felt the same way, but I imagine for entirely different reasons. Worse, this person's blood was especially _beautiful_. The way the blood seeped and flowed through the little spaces in between the stones of the path seemed to me to be the most elegant thing I'd ever seen in my life.

Before long, I noticed that there was someone some distance behind me, retching at the spectacle before him, and when I turned my head to face him, it turned out to be Mikiya. I didn't know the reason why he would be there at that late hour, and I didn't even think about it at the time. After that, there was another spate of unconsciousness, but I think I remember returning to the mansion. I found out that the body was discovered much later, and strangely enough, there was no talk of me being there. Was the Mikiya I saw just a hallucination, some phantom dream designed by my mind? That man is too honest; there's no way he would lie to the police to cover up the real killer.

And why did it have to be done in front of my house?

"Was it you, **Shiki**?" I ask out loud, but no answer came from within or without. The rift of disconnection between me and **Shiki** grew stronger with each passing day. Even if I hand him control of myself, we both have to want something to do it. But why is it that recently, when **Shiki** is in control, my memory becomes misty and indistinct?

Maybe, just maybe, without me noticing, I've become just as insane as the other members of the Ryōgi dynasty.

**Jesus Christ, will you stop worrying? Here's the thing: if you even so much as think you're insane, it means you're not.**

His voice comes to fore and berates me, but he's right. Well, at least I'd like to think he's right. Someone insane doesn't question his own sanity. That at least gives me some comfort.

A knock comes from the door of my room, and the voice of Akitaka comes right after, interrupting my thoughts. "My lady, may I intrude for a moment?" I invite him inside my room, but he refuses due to the late hour.

"Is there something the matter?" I ask.

"There seems to be someone keeping watch over the house."

"But I heard that Father managed to drive all the policemen away."

Akitaka nods. "The police withdrew from further investigation of the premises since last night. This one is an entirely different matter, however."

"You may do as you please. I don't care who it is, he or she has nothing to do with me."

"But my lady, the one who is keeping watch seems to be your friend from school."

Upon hearing that, I stand up from the bed and immediately make my way to the window in my room, with its clear overlooking view of the mansion gate. I pull back the curtain and look outside, keeping my eyes trained beyond the walls. Sure enough, there he was, a solitary figure silhouetted in between the trees. I don't know whether to laugh or be disappointed at his laughable attempt at concealing himself.

"Only say the word and I will ask him to leave," says Akitaka.

"No, not tonight, I think. Leave him and do him no harm. He isn't causing any trouble."

I skip lightly across the floor back to my bed and lie down. Akitaka says a final formal "goodnight", turns off the lights, and closes the door.

The next few minutes consist of me attempting and failing to fall asleep, as my mind keeps drifting back to the window and outside. With nothing to do, I give up and approach the window again, making sure he's still there. And sure enough, he is.

Despite his brown duffle coat, Mikiya is visibly shivering from the cold air. White puffs of air emanate from his mouth with every breath as he keeps watch on the gate with only a thermos of coffee by his feet to keep him company.

Now there's really no way that the Mikiya I saw in my fragmented memory was a dream. I can guess what he's here for: to see if I'm really the killer. This could even be just a foolish attempt by him to keep the killer from ever doing it again; some sense of responsibility on his part as a witness. Watching him from this window while thinking, I bite a fingernail, as I am wont to do when angry. I guess there's nothing else to do but force myself to sleep.

[][][][][][][][][][]

I had already expected a less than customary greeting from Mikiya at school today, if any at all, so him saying…

"_Shiki_, wanna eat lunch together?"

…like nothing had happened is more than a little suspect. And as always, I go along with him. I feel like a pet being bribed to go the roof with food. I had already decided beforehand that I would try not to associate myself with him anymore, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't want to know what he himself thought about that night. I took his offer for lunch thinking he would be the one asking me the obvious question, but he's just thoroughly ignoring the elephant in the room with this one.

"Does your house really need to be that big? Last time I went there, you even had a butler of some sort."

"Akitaka is more like my father's private secretary. And I like to call him a caretaker rather than a servant, Kokutō."

"So I guess there really are people like that, huh?" he says, bookending his sentence with a nervous laugh. His voice exhibits a noticeable quiver.

I can't judge by his attitude whether or not he knows that we've realized he's spying on the house, but still, even given the circumstances he's acting too strange. There's no way he couldn't have seen me covered in blood given how close he was standing to the entire thing, but why is he still laughing and talking to me as if it was some big joke? Well, if he's not talking about it, then it's going to have to come from me.

"Kokutō, on the night of February 3rd, you were—"

"Can we not talk about it?" And just like that, he sweeps the question away.

"What exactly is it that **we can't talk about**,** Kokutō**?"

Unbelievable. The slight shift in tone, the vocal mannerism, the slightly off-beat way I just pronounced his surname. For a second there, **Shiki** owned my voice. Even Mikiya noticed; it's all right there on his face. Strange. That's never happened before, and it stuns me momentarily. I take a half-second of time to compose myself, clear my throat, and continue. "Be frank with me. Why did you not tell anything to the authorities?"

"Because," Mikiya answers, "I didn't see anything."

You liar. That can't be true.

— that can't be true because that night, **Shiki** approached you —

"You just happened to be there," he continues. "That's the only thing I saw at the very least. So I decided to believe you."

You liar. If you believed me, why did you keep watch outside my house?

— **Shiki** drew closer, rain-speckled and blood-spattered —

"Honestly, it's hard for me to talk about right now. Once I have more confidence in myself and put it behind me, maybe I can hear what you have to say. But for now, just…please, let's not talk about it."

How I so wanted to look away from him, to run away from the honesty in his face. To me, it looked like it was accusing me of murder.

— **Shiki** stood over him, and there was no mistaking it. He want-ed to kill Mikiya.

Even though I never wanted to kill him. He said he believed in me. If I could only throw away that impulse, if only I believed in myself, then maybe I could have been spared the taste of this strange new sadness.

[][][][][][][][][][]

I did my damndest to avoid Mikiya after that day. After two days, he gave up on talking to me too, but he still sits outside the walls of the mansion every night without fail, for close to two weeks now. I admire his persistence, if nothing else. Under the chill of winter, Mikiya sits just a little inside the bamboo tree line outside of the grounds, watching the gate, and he does this until three o' clock in the morning. Every night I spy a look at him, and every night I bite a nail in annoyance. I guess he got his wish; because of him, I haven't been going out of the house at night lately.

At three o' clock in the morning, he always leaves not with a tired or worn out face, but with a smile. He isn't doing this to find out who the killer is. He said he trusted me, as if it was entirely natural to do so. He's doing this to prove, or otherwise convince himself, that I am innocent. That's why, when the dawn breaks, and he starts to leave, he smiles. Because nothing happened.

"I guess optimism is in his blood," I murmured quietly, one night while watching him. And it makes me think. Being with Mikiya makes me calmer, more at peace. Being with Mikiya fools me into thinking I'm one of his kind. Being with Mikiya makes me think I can actually go to his side of the world, a bright side of the world that I'll never be allowed into, a world that has no place for me. And with that dumb smile on his face, he tries to drag me in.

That's the real reason why I'm irritated at him. I've nursed a murderer inside me named **Shiki** for as long as I've lived, but Mikiya keeps showing me a better life, without **Shiki**, without the impulse of killing. But instead of making me happy, it just strengthens what I already know: that I am not normal, I don't belong.

"_I've survived being alone my entire life_, **but now you're proving to be a nuisance**,** Kokutō**," I murmur out loud.

_I don't want to go insane_.

**I don't want to break**.

If he hadn't given me the dream, that small spark of hope of a normal life, everything would have turned out better for me.

[][][][][][][][][][]

March has just begun, and already the cold seems to be receding. After class, I stay in the classroom and look outside the window. It feels like forever since I last did so. Here, in this window, the world that I view from on high actually makes me feel secure. A view of a world that I can't reach doesn't make me entertain any illusions of reaching it.

And like a vision from older, better times, Mikiya enters the sunset bathed classroom in exactly the manner he used to do. **Shiki** always liked to talk to him like this. I did as well.

"I never thought I'd get invited by you again to talk after class," Mikiya says. "Are you going to stop ignoring me now?"

"It's because I realized I can't go on doing that that I called you."

His eyes twitch a moment in surprise. Even though **Shiki** is trying his best to overcome me and take over, I try to hold out long enough to say what I have to say to Mikiya.

"You said before that I'm not a murderer." I can barely see Mikiya's face against the bright red glow of the sunset, but I can see he's disappointed that we had to talk about this. "Too bad. I am a murderer. You were at the scene of the crime, but why didn't you tell anything to the police?"

"Because there's nothing for me to tell. You didn't do anything, right?"

"Even if I'm saying it to your face right now?"

He nods. "Hey, you're the one that said that I should take everything you say with a grain of salt. There's no way you were the one that did that. I'm sure of it."

"What are you so sure of? What do you even know about me? What part of me can you believe in?" Unintentionally, my anger at him grows. For his part, he gives me a half-baked smile.

"I don't have any basis, but I trust you. See, I like you, so I want to keep on believing in you."

And that makes me stop like I'd just run into a wall. Those words which are probably just nothing to him are the most that anyone has given me; happiness, and my destruction, in one sentence. This carefree man has given me the illusion of a time spent with someone, a better world that's not for me. Because I know that if I ever get close to someone, **Shiki** will come out and kill him, because denial is the sole reason he exists. And because he cannot live without affirmation, I exist. But because I've never been close to anything in my entire life, I could live through the paradox. Now that I know the world he can give me, the more I wish for it, the more I realize that it's a hopeless and impossible wish. It hurts me and I hate it, and for the first time ever, I hate Mikiya from the bottom of my heart for making me realize it.

And he laughs like it means nothing.

I can't stand being here anymore. I can't stand him. I see it now. This is how Mikiya will destroy me.

"You are a fool," I declare.

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

As the sunset slowly turns to dusk, I exit the classroom while I still can. Before I cross the doorway however, I do one last thing. With my back still turned, I ask Mikiya a question.

"Are you coming tonight?"

"What?" He sounds surprised. I guess he still doesn't realize I watch his little vigils. He tries to wave it off, but I insist.

"Answer me, damn you."

"I don't know what you're talking about, but if I feel like going to your house, I will."

And with that I leave him in the classroom, and exit the school grounds. Gray clouds dot the red horizon, and the low rumble of thunder sounds off in the distance. I guess it'll be a rainy night tonight.

* * *

><p>／5<p>

Only when the sun had finally retreated and it became dark, just as I was making my way to _Shiki_'s house, did the rain finally start to pour. Nice of it to wait like that. It isn't a torrential downfall, but it isn't a light drizzle either. The small, pattering sounds of the raindrops on the stone path, and on the leaves, and on my umbrella made this a night full of noise. The rain water itself is still cold, a leftover of the winter that the coming of March had not yet completely erased. Together with the bamboo leaves and trees as my sole companions tonight, I keep my eyes trained on the mansion and the gate. My umbrella hand is turning red, growing numb from the cold.

I sigh, a big long one. I can't keep this thing up forever, obviously. First thing, it feels like I'm a stalker. Second thing, it's doing a number on my ability to keep awake in class. I'm gonna give it another week, and then I'll probably call it quits. It'd be nice if the killer was caught in that time, though.

I should have thought it would be the rain that would make me give in. It kinda feels like the cold and the rain are double teaming me just to lay off the creepy stake outs.

I sigh, another long one. It's not the rain that has me depressed though, but today's verbal sparring with _Shiki._ "What part of me can you believe in?" she said. If she thinks I don't believe her, than what have I actually been trying to do all this time? Anyone could tell from her face this afternoon that she was agonizing over something. She even looked like she was ready to cry; that, or tell you off. You never can tell with her.

The rain doesn't look like it'll end soon. The raindrops make ripples even on the little puddles of water. If you can learn to selectively ignore the noise the raindrops are making, I'm sure it might even be a peaceful, serene night. But to me it's just noise. And yet, even in all that noise, a singular splash, a single footfall behind me reverberates across the bamboo brush. I turn around to see only a solitary figure in a red kimono. It was her.

She'd been out in the rain for a long time, that much was obvious. She was drenched from top to bottom, her short, black hair sticking to her cheeks and face, casting a dark shadow over her eyes.

"_Shiki_." I make my way to her. She must have been out here since the rain started. Her red kimono is so damp it's sticking to her body, and her skin is so cold to the touch. I hold out my umbrella to cover the both of us while I rifle through my bag, searching for a towel.

"Here, wipe yourself with this." I extend my arm, towel draped over my hand. "What the hell are you doing out here in the rain when your house is right there?"

She takes one glance at my outstretched arm, and laughs a bitter, queer laugh. It is punctuated by a keening sound slicing through the empty night air.

"Wh…" It happened faster than my eye could see. I feel something warm in my arm, and instinctively take a step back. The red warmth in my arm is flowing downwards like a snake, splitting in two and dripping.

My arm?

A cut?

Why?

The pain pierces me, courses through my arm, hurting like nothing I've ever felt before. It makes me numb. No time to think. No time to even panic.

She takes a step forward, I take a step back. Calmly. Have to run. Have to get away.

No.

No time to get away. I move fast, but she is faster, like a monster. Another keening sound, this time in my leg.

Red. Red mixes with the puddles in the path. My red blood, rippling outwards from the impact of raindrops. I see it, see the cut on my leg, feel the pain. I collapse, face-up, seeing the sky, the falling rain. My back hits the stone path. I gasp at the sudden impact.

She climbs on top of me, and points her knife at my throat. Calm. No time for panic. The noise of the rainfall retreats, ignored. Just calm.

I look up, and see the darkness of the sky, and her, set against that darkness. Her eyes are black and implacable, like an abyss, and I see myself reflected in that void.

I can feel the tip of the knife, just below my chin, steel cold to the touch like her skin. Like the blood on my leg, little water drops snake down her face, a face framed by her black hair; like a mask, it is blank, terrifying, and pitiful all at the same time.

"**Kokutō**, _say something_. _Anything_," _Shiki _says. My last words. She wants to hear them. I look her straight in the eye, and speak with a wavering voice, desperately trying to keep calm.

"I…don't want…to die."

Somehow, I felt I wasn't saying this to _Shiki_, but to the death that was now coming for me.

She smiles.

"I…I want to kill you."

It was a very gentle smile.

* * *

><p>Empty Boundaries／Beginning<p>

It's July 1998, and I celebrate a little in my head as I finish up the day's work early, just before lunch break. I say "work" but really, I'm just more of a secretary to Miss Tōko than anything, mostly doing the odd job she needs doing. I'm lucky to even get work at all, having dropped out of college halfway.

"Kokutō, isn't today your weekly visit?"

"Yes, ma'am. Soon as I finish this up, I'm going there right away."

"Oh, don't delay on account of me. You can go early. There's nothing more for you to do here today, anyway."

I have to say, Miss Tōko's temperament when her glasses are on is much more preferable. And after all, this is a good day for her too; since it's the day she cleans that car she's so proud of to an immaculate sparkle. She always likes doing that.

"Thanks, ma'am. I'll be back in about two hours."

"Bring me back a snack or two, all right?" She waves me a goodbye just before I close the door to her office.

_Shiki_ Ryōgi is still in the hospital, still in a coma unable to do anything. I still go to visit her every Saturday afternoon. She never told me about any pain she was holding in, or anything she thought about. I don't even know why she tried to kill me. But at least she smiled in the end, even if it was a faint one. At least she smiled, and that was enough.

Gakutō had it right a long time ago. I was already crazy. I guess that's why I am the way I am today even after a brush with death.

I still remember the last time we stood in the sunset lit classroom. Under that burning, blood red sky, _Shiki_ asked me what part of her I believed in. And I still remember my answer.

"I don't have any basis, but I trust you. I like you, so I want to keep believing in you."

A premature answer, perhaps. I said I didn't have any basis, but the truth is, I did. I just didn't know it at the time. She didn't kill anyone. That, at least, I could believe in. Because _Shiki_ knew how painful murder was. She, above all others, knew the suffering that the victim and the murderer went through.

That's why I believed: in _Shiki_, who couldn't express herself, in **Shiki**, who wasn't given a chance to be a person, in _Shiki_, who was far from pain, and in **Shiki**, who knew nothing but pain.

* * *

><p>0<p>

The three pieces now lie poised on the board.

One a mind entwined with a specter floating, and on death, dependent.

One a life in paradox eternal, and in death, pleasure.

One a predator with origin awakened, and to death, gnosis.

Three now swirl and dance, and in the spiral of conflict they wait.


End file.
